


The (Un)Fairest Of Them All

by commoncomitatus



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-20 15:33:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 33,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3655548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commoncomitatus/pseuds/commoncomitatus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tag to "Bring Me the Heart of Snow White", wherein Vivienne is not the only one who finds herself in pain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

*

The instant she sees him, she knows something is wrong.

In the first, he is angry. The Inquisitor is one of the most soft-hearted men Vivienne has ever met — perhaps a little too soft-hearted, if the truth be known — and she has never yet seen him lose his temper. Even in the thick of battle, the tides turned against him and defeat inevitable, still he wields his composure as surely as he holds his shield. He is not the type to throw insults about like cheap confetti, which is more than can be said for certain other members of the Inquisition, and he has never once raised his voice simply to make a point. In short, he is a gentleman, and the change in him now is both poignant and startling.

In the second, he has not bathed. As a man, he has a great many faults; he is naive to a point of idiocy, and his tendency to see only the best in people is frankly a disaster waiting to happen, but his attention to proper hygiene and dedication to keeping himself presentable is second only to her own. That he would show himself in public like this is unfathomable enough, but that he would come specifically to _her_ in such a state is a veritable beacon, a warning of terrible things to come.

In the third, he does not bother to properly greet her. Far more than simple rudeness, the gesture is a marked deviation from the way they usually meet. The Inquisitor does not have much in the way of free time, and neither does Vivienne, but when they do find a moment or two to share each other’s company she expects him to at least go through the motions of a proper ‘hello’; after all, doesn’t he expect the same from her in kind? For a start, it is a question of good manners, but more than that it marks the moment as theirs; it is a way of saying, _‘I have put aside everything else, and chosen to spend my time with you’_. They are both busy people, after all, and if they are going to dally about with each other during the precious few moments they have to themselves, at the very least it should be done properly.

Of course, then, she doesn’t let him get away with it. He may be content to bluster about like a force of nature, but she is not nearly so barbaric, and so she holds herself with the usual poise, one brow artfully quirked as she watches his approach. They are not primates, after all. She smiles, too, because surely one of them must attempt civility, and goes through the usual routines as though nothing were out of the ordinary. A lady must never show her hand too early, after all.

“Inquisitor!” He does not return her smile, but then, of course, it is not truly for his benefit. “What can I do for you, darling?”

He does not meet her eye. That is another worrying sign; they may not always share opinions, may even clash on occasion, but they have always held some modicum of respect for each other. The Inquisitor has never been cagey — not with anyone, in truth, and certainly not with her — and it makes Vivienne wonder for a moment if she has done something he finds distasteful, if she has upset him in some way. A preposterous idea, of course, and yet…

“I’ve brought you the heart.”

 _Ah_.

The news takes her rather more by surprise than she’d care to admit, and though she is a master at the Grand Game, still she feels her expression slip ever so slightly, curiosity and caution giving way to breathless relief; it is the most potent of all emotions, second only to horror, and even she is not talented enough to mask it completely.

She was not expecting such a swift response to her little request. The urgency of this particular matter was hers and hers alone, and she never had any delusions to the contrary. Vivienne knows better than anyone that the Inquisitor’s time is precious, that he has countless tasks awaiting his attention; that he was willing to do this for her at all, much less with such immediate efficiency, speaks volumes of his respect for her. It clashes with his present attitude, the rudeness and the unwashed face, in a way that makes her uncomfortable.

It does not help, of course, that he has been mistrustful since the moment she first brought up the subject of the wyvern’s heart. He masked it well, of course, but she could tell that he was offended. The secrecy was necessary, of course, though pointing it out did little to placate him at the time. Still, though, she has no regrets; the delicacy of this particular matter was far more pressing than appeasing even the Herald of Andraste. Bastien’s illness is a touchy subject in the Court anyway, and a few yet remain who disapprove of her on a personal level. Discretion wasn’t simply advised, it was imperative. Of course, the Inquisitor is a Free Marcher by birth, and he is not nearly so well-versed in Orlesian politics as she would like; though he heard her explanations and acknowledged them, still he was far from pleased by her ‘keeping secrets’.

That, of course, was never her intention, not that it seems to matter. She was simply waiting for the appropriate time to discuss the matter more openly. And now, it seems, that time has arrived. Timely, if rather unexpected.

He hands over the heart without ceremony, a carefully-wrapped package that sits perfectly in her palms, heavy with promise and potential. She does not need to examine the thing to know that it’s genuine, and she would not show such disrespect to the Inquisitor by doing so in his presence anyway. No, that moment will be hers and hers alone, as soon as he leaves.

“Inquisitor, you are a treasure.”

It is a leading statement, deliberate and pointed and, like everything she says, it means far more than the words themselves suggest. It means, _Thank you, my dear, now please go away so that I may begin my work without an audience_. The Inquisitor may not be an expert in reading people, but even he can read that message.

Unfortunately, if he does, he has no intention of heeding it. “Don’t thank me,” he says, and his voice is as cold as the package in her hands.

The words sound strange, confusing. It breaks from the script, the perfectly-practiced discourse she’d had in mind, planned out and rehearsed _ad infinitum_ for this moment. Vivienne finds herself throws her for a moment, uncharacteristically taken out of her element; it is just a moment, though, and when she composes herself and faces him again, it’s with one brow raised in a perfect arc.

“I beg your pardon?”

The faintest flicker of curiosity in her voice, no more. He must not know that he has surprised her.

“You heard me.”

He does meet her eye now, but there is none of the respect and admiration she has come to expect from him; he looks positively livid, and that is almost more worrying than the words, or even the disrespect in his tone. A voice can say a great many things, but it is the eyes that hold the truth. Vivienne is unnerved, and that makes her defensive.

“I heard you, darling, yes. But I’m afraid I don’t—”

“Fine.” There is gravel in his voice, far from the nobility that raised him. “Then I’ll repeat it. _Don’t thank me_. If you feel the need to thank someone, I would suggest Sera.”

This time, she cannot mask her disbelief. _Sera_. The very name is the worst kind of affront, and the thought of debasing herself by expressing _gratitude_ to such a base and despicable little creature fills her with distaste. Surely this is some kind of joke; the Inquisitor, sulking like a child at her ‘secret-keeping’, is trying to make a point, nothing more. Childish, perhaps, but Vivienne has lived in Orlais for long enough that a moment’s immaturity on the part of a young nobleman is practically commonplace. Let him have his little tantrum, if it pleases him.

“Honestly, Inquisitor,” she says, light and airy. “Could you not have thought of someone a little more believable, if you wanted to—”

“You heard me,” he says again, and she is so surprised by the hardness in his voice that she does not even think to rap his knuckles for the interruption. “I didn’t make the kill. Sera did.”

The very idea is so preposterous that Vivienne bursts out laughing. “My dear Inquisitor, have you been drinking?”

“No.” As with her own discourse, there is far more to the word than it implies. “Frankly, Vivienne, if I’d had my way, we would have let the stupid thing go. Maker, I know you said it was dangerous, but…”

There is something oddly telling in the way he trails off, panic flashing like memory in his eyes; it unnerves her all over again, and this time she does not bother to conceal it. Thankfully, he turns away before the discomfort makes itself known, turning his eyes to the balcony doors, staring past them rather than through. Momentarily, as though mad, Vivienne thinks of apologising, but then she realises that she still has no idea what she supposedly did wrong.

“I did warn you,” she says, clinging to that small piece of the truth. “I do apologise if the beast caused you any trouble, but do recall that you were armed with extensive knowledge and every resource I had at my disposal.”

“For all the good it did us.” This, he mutters mostly to himself, as though he has all but forgotten she’s there at all. It is more than just rude; it is inexcusable. “Anyway. Like I said, Sera made the kill — against my orders, I might add — so if you want to thank someone, then whether you like it or not, you’ll have to go to her.”

It is, by all accounts, a sickening turn of events. The animosity between Sera and Vivienne is hardly a secret, nor should it be. The differences between them are monumental, their mutual stubbornness the stuff of legends; simply put, some people are destined to never get along, to never see even a sliver of worth in the other, and that is their relationship. To be indebted to _her_ , of all people… in truth, it almost makes Vivienne reconsider the whole affair.

Still, though, she has never shied away from doing her duty, and she will not begin now. If a debt is owed, it will be repaid, regardless of the cost to her pride. If the little elven troublemaker truly is responsible for the package in her hands, the final ingredient for Bastien’s elixir, and if the Inquisitor truly believes that she is the one deserving thanks, then regardless of her personal feelings, Vivienne will hold her head high and offer them.

She wonders if this is why the Inquisitor is so angry. Does he think so little of her that he’d assume she would turn away from a task as mundane as this, simply because it involves Sera? She can be petty, yes, though no more so than anyone in her position would be, but to assume that she would place her own ego more highly than another’s good deed? Surely not. Even from one as loathsome as Sera, a debt is a debt, and Vivienne will not allow that to stand. Let the silly creature parade her around Skyhold if it pleases her; better that than allow her good name to be linked with ingratitude.

“Very well, then,” she says, mostly to placate him; time is of the essence, of course, and she is itching to begin work on the potion, but she will not allow the Inquisitor to leave unsatisfied. “Where is the little parasite, so that I might properly demean myself?”

His features harden to stone. The anger is radiating from him in waves now, and she marvels at her own stupidity, at how long it took for her to recognise its source. The answer is right there in front of her, as plain as daylight, and yet she missed it. _Fool_ , she thinks, and shakes her head.

It is obvious, even without the glaring evidence. Impossible though it might seem, the Inquisitor has a soft spot for the troublemaking little elf; he always has, from the moment he dragged her into their inner circle. A shame, in truth, but there is no accounting for taste, and given her particular preferences it’s hardly a scandal; empires are seldom toppled on _friendships_ , after all. Still, the situation is an unfortunate one, and it is for his sake that Vivienne keeps her expression neutral as he turns to face her.

“Where do you _think_ she is?” His voice seethes like a Fade rift.

Vivienne bows her head. Not from any sort of compassion, of course, but simply because it is expected of her. It’s an unpleasant business, truly, and it would be unbecoming of her not to at least feign some level of regret.

“Let me guess,” she sighs. “The silly girl put herself in the infirmary?”

The trail of mud and dirt as he storms off is, of course, answer enough.

*

It’s not that she doesn’t care, she reminds herself. It is simply that she has more important things on her mind.

Her fingers itch as she saunters down the stairs. She wants to return to her private quarters, to begin work on Bastien’s potion immediately and find the fastest mount available to take her to his side. That is important; that is what matters, far more than some self-righteous little upstart with a quick mouth and a quicker bow. Sera can wait, surely, until the immediate task is complete, until dear Bastien is safe and well and everything is as it should be.

More than the urgency, though, Vivienne finds that she is uncomfortable simply because she is uncomfortable, simply because it is _Sera_. The two of them have never seen eye-to-eye, and as shameful as it is to be indebted to anyone — _‘thank you’_ has never come easily to Vivienne, even at the best of times — Sera’s particular nature makes it a thousand times worse. At best the encounter will be awkward; at worst, excruciating.

The eyes of the masses are on her as she descends to the courtyard, head held high and skirts gathered artfully about her, flowing like a cloak, designed to intimidate. The staring is nothing new; she is long accustomed to being watched for one reason or another, and she has long since learned the subtle art of turning even the cruelest looks into awe and admiration. It is a gift that has kept her from madness more often than she can count, and she puts it to good use here as well, effortlessly catching the eyes of visiting dignitaries and weathered soldiers alike.

When she reaches the infirmary, she finds herself almost grateful for the relative privacy, because when she catches sight of Sera she finds herself utterly unable to conceal the shock. It would be unbecoming on anyone, the little gasp that she lets slip, but on the Imperial Court Enchanter, it would be social suicide.

Fortunate, then, that this place is isolated, off-limits to all who don’t have business here. More fortunate still that the only witness to her momentary slip is the surgeon, who has certainly seen such displays on countless occasions.

Sera lies on a pathetic-looking bedroll; it is little more than a pallet, really, and Vivienne’s back twinges just thinking of what it must feel like against the skin. She is curled on her side, face obscured by the hideous birds-nest she calls hair, and Vivienne can tell by her breathing that she is semiconscious at best. That is a blessing as well, albeit a mixed one; though it makes the _’thank you’_ issue rather more difficult, it is worth it simply for the fact that Sera is in no condition to see her wince. Sera would never let her hear the end of it if she saw her so reduced — and for her sake, no less! — and Vivienne has more important things to do with her time than quash rumours of empathy and compassion. Foolish sentiments, and she will not allow her name to be associated with them.

The Inquisitor’s pet demon, Cole, is crouched by her side. He does not count as an ‘audience’, of course, but Vivienne would still prefer that he not be here. To say that he unnerves her would be an understatement, and his disjointed manner of speaking is irritating at best.

He speaks now, of course, because apparently Vivienne’s day is not annoying enough already. Which one of them he’s talking to, Vivienne hasn’t the slightest clue; Sera is in no condition to hear either of them, and Vivienne has no intention of listening to him, so neither seem like a particularly credible choice. Regardless,speak he does, and she desperately wishes that he wouldn’t.

“Sweat on the skin, shirt sticking. Slick, soaked, shoulders shuddering. Stomach sour, sickened, swallowing spasms, standing, shaking, slipping. Suffering but not suffocating, strangling but not stumbling. _No. Not like this, not now. Won’t let them down, won’t let her down. They don’t know, but I do. Don’t know nothing, but I bloody well know that, don’t I? I know, I know, I know. Won’t let her down._ ” His head was bowed low to begin with, but he bows it even lower now, until the brim of his hat almost touches Sera’s side. “She shoots. Straight, strong, steady. Not her, not really, but in her hands it lets her pretend. It lets her _become_ , lets her _be_ , a moment tangled in a moment, winding, wending, worrying, stretching the string until it snaps.”

HIs head jerks up, as though pulled by some invisible force; the movement is so sharp and sudden that Vivienne doesn’t have a chance to react. Her breath catches in her throat, horrified, as his empty eyes lock on hers. He is quite terrifying, this demon thing, and Vivienne finds herself wondering, as she so often does, what in the world possessed the Inquisitor to let him stay.

A sobering, thought, _possessed_ , and one that makes her shudder.

“Leave us be, demon,” she commands. “I did not summon you.”

His eyes are sorrowful, or would be if he was human. As it is, they merely stand as a warning, a pointed reminder that he is not, that he never will be. “No-one summoned me.”

She groans. This whole affair is unpleasant enough without him making it worse. “Then leave. You are not wanted here.”

“No. Not wanted.” He turns back to Sera, head bowed low once more. “But she hurts. Horrible, hurts like hate inside, entangled, interwoven. Hurting, hating, hatefully hurt. Hard to unravel, untangle, unwind. But I have to try. I have to. Her hurts are so heavy, hate heavier. Bound to her back, bitterness a burden that will break.” His shoulders tighten, hunching forwards. “She will break. You will, too, if she does.”

“This is ridiculous.” Vivienne steps forwards, nudges the demon out of the way. He loses his balance, but she ignores him, leaning in to try and catch a glimpse of Sera’s face through her hair. “Sera, dear? Can you hear me?”

Of course, it is the demon that answers. “She did it for you.”

Despite her efforts, the words catch her attention, and she cuts a glance back at him. “For pity’s sake, what are you blathering about now?”

“She did it for you.” A different tone gives the phrase a different meaning; strange, the way he does that. “She knew. He didn’t know, but she did. She knew you, knows you, sees you.” His shoulders hunch again, twitching almost in rhythm with Sera as her body tightens in some kind of spasm. “ _Bloody bitch. Heart for the heartless? Nice one, that. But she’s not really, is she? Heartless don’t get a heart, don’t want none. Not her, not that. Not really, but fun to pretend. Bloody bitch and her bloody heart. You only get one, innit? Not gonna let it get broken. Not even hers. Won’t let her down. Can’t let her down. Bloody bitch._ ”

Sera chokes, splutters; the violence of the moment brings her face fully into view for the first time, if only for a second, and Vivienne winces at the sight of blood and bile on her lips. A hateful hurt, indeed.

Cole touches her face, fingertips to her forehead, thumb against her cheek, brushing away the uneven threads of her hair and a little of the sweat that makes it cling. He is so careful, so tender, that he might almost be mistaken, by one less educated than Vivienne, for a surgeon or a nurse, for someone _kind_. As it stands, she knows his type all too well; she knows what he is, what his kind does, and she will not forget.

Despite her best efforts, though, it seems that Sera is calmed by the gesture. She twitches and thrashes, clearly in great pain, but there is no mistaking the way Cole’s touches quiet her noises just a little. That is something, Vivienne supposes, and rather more than she herself could offer, and so she does not intervene.

Still, though, it is a long moment before Sera stills completely, head dropping back to the sweat-drenched pillow. Cole takes a deep breath, as though demons require breath at all, and turns to study Vivienne again.

“She did it for you,” he says, for the third time. “She knew you’d be sad if we failed. She knew it would hurt, and she…” Hovering over Sera’s face, his fingertips tremble, as though he truly were human, overwhelmed by emotion. Vivienne almost allows her own hands to do the same. _Almost_. “She didn’t want you to hurt. She thinks that she wears it better. Hurt, hate. She thinks it looks better on her. _Only thing that ever did, innit?_ She wanted to take it from you.”

The idea is preposterous, of course, and Vivienne refutes it with a laugh. “Even our little Sera is not that stupid.”

“No, no. Not stupid. Smart, stealthy, subtle, sneaky. She goes where no-one else knows. Her eyes search the dark, she sees the things they don’t. Grasping, groping, groaning, glimmers glowing on the page, the whispers that the words don’t show. _My darling_ and _dearest_ and _dying_. She saw and she learned. Now she understands.”

Vivienne sighs. “If you’re trying to inform me that the little monster was rummaging through my things, _again_ …”

“Rummaging, yes. Rummaging, rustling, wrangling, rattling. She sees because she seeks, because she wants to know. Secrets are scary, skittering in the shadows, scraping and scratching, scars under the skin.” He touches Sera’s face again, still unbearably tender, and Vivienne finds herself forced to look away. “She just wanted to know.”

That is more than Vivienne wished to hear. It is difficult enough to feel indebted to someone like Sera, and that struggle is growing greater and greater with every revelation from the demon. She does not wish to seem ungrateful, perish the thought, but Sera’s tendency to put her nose — and, unfortunately, other parts of herself — where they are not wanted makes the task of thanking her something of an uphill climb. It makes it difficult conjure any kind of sympathy, even with the sight of her lying there. The frustration makes her feel cruel, as cold and heartless as the world sees her, but she is not the one who picked this fight.

“I’m sure there are things we all ‘want to know’, dear,” she says, and chastens herself for falling once more into the demon’s trap by speaking to it. “That is no excuse for rifling around in someone else’s belongings.”

Cole turns again, studies her for a very long moment. Vivienne detests the way he does that, staring at her as though staring through her. It reminds her of the way the Inquisitor stared past the doors to her balcony, the way he looked at them as though seeing something else entirely. It was perplexing enough on him, a man, but on the demon it makes her stomach turn. For one it is unbecoming, for two it is rude, and for three it is incredibly disconcerting. Maker only knows what the dear man was thinking, letting this thing run about unbound, but far be it from a simple Circle mage to question the Herald of Andraste.

“Why?” he asks. Vivienne opens her mouth to ask him what he’s talking about now, but he rushes on before she can get the words out. “When? Where? Wondering. You think she does these things to hurt you. She thinks she does them to hurt you too, but she doesn’t.” He closes his eyes, and for a second or two he looks almost sad; the illusion is convincing enough that Vivienne nearly forgets that he is incapable of such things. “She doesn’t really know why she does them. She just does.”

“She does them because she revels in mischief,” Vivienne says with a sigh; it is ludicrous that this is even a point for discussion. “That’s reason enough for someone like her, I assure you.”

The demon turns back to Sera, and the strange tenderness in him tugs at some forgotten place in Vivienne’s chest, a place that almost wishes she could forget what he is, wishes it could take him and his tenderness at face value, if not for her own sake then for Sera’s.

 _Foolish woman,_ she thinks, cutting off the feeling before it can spread. _You can’t afford to be seduced by his sort_.

True enough, and a much-needed reminder of the truth. She turns her face away so that he doesn’t see the flicker in her, the brief lapse; he will devour her completely if he thinks he might have a foothold, and she absolutely cannot allow that. The last thing she needs is to let slip a moment of weakness in front of a demon. He is dangerous, and clearly insidious; she will not let him see her falter. No-one will ever see her falter like that.

He bows his head, sighs, a strange-sounding echo of her own. “She might die.”

“I doubt it,” Vivienne says, and it surprises her that she sincerely wants to believe it. “She’s too stubborn for that.”

Still, the bleakness of his words forces her her take a second look at Sera, forces her to reconsider certain things she’d taken for granted. Vivienne has been in more than her share of combat situations, has stood side-by-side with the finest of Cullen’s soldiers, the stealthiest of Leliana’s spies; since joining the Inquisition she has seen battle from every side, every angle, and that is precisely how she intended it. She is no pampered court jester, for all that she might wear the trappings of one, and she does not pale at the sight of blood. She will not allow others to shape the world on her behalf; she will be master of her own fate, even if it means bloodying her nose or breaking someone else’s.

So, yes, she has seen even the worst kind of injuries before. She is intimately acquainted with them, in fact, and she flatters herself that she understands how they work on both an anatomical and supernatural level; she knows the differences between a body torn asunder by an axe and one ripped apart by magical forces, to say nothing of her own particular talents in the healing arts. She knows these things well. If Sera truly is dying, Vivienne is certain that she’d recognise the signs immediately. It would take only a brief examination, a moment’s thought… and it is only now, on thinking of this, that she realises she has not even bothered to look.

She bothers now. She nudges the demon out of the way for a second time and crouches down at Sera’s side, unmindful of the creases in her skirts; she pushes that horrific hair back from her face, rolls her body over onto its back, and looks. Truly _looks_ , for the first time, and the sight of it lashes at her back like a blow. Pale skin, a slash across her side, blood seeping through the tears in her tunic and the bandages beneath. That would be startling in itself, though not especially worrisome, but Vivienne knows that the true danger is not on the outside. The gash is deep, yes, and horrible-looking, but it is only a flesh wound; she herself has seen and healed far worse on the troublesome elf, more times than either of them can count.

No, the true danger lies within. In the blood, specifically, and not the stuff making a mess of her clothes. The blood elsewhere is far more dangerous, and it turns her stomach to look at it again, congealed at the corners of her mouth, on her lips. Vivienne does not need to ask Cole for the details; she knows them as surely as if she was there herself, as surely as if she was the one lying prone on that pallet instead of silly little Sera. She was, after all, the cause of all this.

An ordinary wyvern is dangerous enough, lethal without access to the proper antidote, but the snowy wyvern is deadlier by far. This, Vivienne knows entirely too well, and if she’d thought for a moment that the Inquisitor would be foolish enough to bring Sera, of all people, on the hunt, she might have thought twice before asking. It is no secret, of course, that he trusts her far more than he should, but that he imagined even for a moment that _she_ might be equal to this particular task is nothing short of idiocy.

She armed the dear man with all the knowledge at her disposal. She provided him with several variants of the known wyvern antidotes, all from her own private stocks, and she warned him repeatedly that even that might not be enough, that it might prove inadequate against the snowy wyvern’s potent venom. She warned him, again and again, that this was no phoenix-hunt in the Western Approach, no game of nug-chasing in the Crestwood lake. She _warned him_ , and yet still he thought to make light of it. Recalling their conversations on the matter now, with Sera lying semiconscious in front of her, she finds herself infuriated to an unimaginable degree.

How long did it take them, she wonders, to drag the poor thing back here? How much of the antidote did they put into her, that she has survived this long and yet still looks like this? It is unbecoming of a Court Enchanter to feel guilty, of course, and least of all when she made sure to issue the proper warnings, and yet she finds herself gripped by a feeling that ventures dangerously close. Odd, that she should feel this way now, over someone as reckless and expendable as Sera. No true loss there, even if the demon is right… and yet…

“You care.” He whispers it, hushed like confessions in an empty chantry, yet the words resonate in a way that Vivienne was unprepared for. They sting, scratch at the surface, and if she were anyone else, they might have broken the skin. “You wish you wouldn’t, but you do. _Vagabond, voracious, violent, vapid_ … your mouth says _vacuous_ but your heart sings _vibrant_.”

“That is quite enough!”

She is more than simply angry now, and it is outrage that drives her to her feet. She takes great care to smooth out the creases in her clothes, the tiny imperfections that she ignored so easily before, takes great care to rearrange every detail of her facade so that no-one could dare imagine the demon might be right. And yes, it _is_ a demon. This, she reminds herself again, and then again. She need think of nothing but that. There is nothing in what he says, nothing in the way he tugs at her feelings; he is a _demon_ , and his kind would do or say anything to get inside the minds of good people, to twist them and transform them into terrible things. That will not be her. She will not become an abomination.

She leaves in a hurry, skirts swirling about her like a barrier, like a shield. Cole watches her go, and though he doesn’t move at all, still Vivienne can hear him as clearly as if he was with her when he whispers, again, “She might die.”

Vivienne ignores him. She has more important things to do.

*

Alchemy is a delicate art, and it takes great concentration.

Back in the privacy of her chambers, Vivienne wills herself to forget what she saw in the infirmary, to block out the memory of Sera’s face, the spasms wracking her body, the blood and bile on her lips and the sweat-soaked hair sticking to her face. She wills herself to forget that it is all her fault, that she is responsible, that she owes Sera not only thanks but apologies as well. Most of all, she wills herself to ignore the nagging voice in the back of her mind that wonders if the demon might be right. All of it, she casts aside, forgotten and ignored; she has more important things to worry about.

 _Bastien_.

He is her priority. He has always been her priority, from the moment their eyes first met, and it would take more than a few words from a demon to change that. The wyvern’s heart is for him, the potion is for him, and that is where she must focus her efforts; it will serve no-one to think of Sera now. At best, it is a needless distraction from what truly matters; at worst, it leaves her vulnerable to mistakes that she simply cannot afford. What would the silly little thing say, after all, if it turned out her sacrifice was in vain simply because Vivienne was too busy fretting over her to perform her duty? _No_. Time is of the essence, and the task is difficult enough without that.

The potion itself does not take long to prepare. The effort lies, as ever, in the little details, and those she watches over with a critical eye. Every last step is micro-managed to the nearest quarter of a second to ensure maximum potency, maximum chance of success. She will not let her Bastien down.

She makes her way to the stables the instant she is finished. The elixir’s degradation begins at once from the very instant the heart is added. The longer she waits between preparation and administration, the higher the chance of failure; this is true even when stored, as it is now, in perfect darkness. Exposure to a light source doubles that likelihood, and that is without considering the countless other variables that could strike at any moment. Vivienne has no intention of seeing her efforts fall at the final step, and so she makes haste.

Besides, it is simply good manners to keep one’s appointments. Bastien may forgive her a moment’s clumsiness, a slight tremor in her fingertips as she measures out the redmoss or a fractional miscalculation in the elfroot-silverite emulsion, but tardiness is an unforgivable sin.

The demon boy appears just as she finishes saddling her horse.

It stands there like a lost puppy, staring up at her as though expecting some kind of reward, as though assuming that she would be anything other than horrified by the sight of it. Foolish creature. In any event, Vivienne has neither the time nor the inclination to even feign interest in what it has to say; she is entirely preoccupied by counting down the seconds, all too aware of the elixir’s diminishing potency. She will not be distracted by this, and so she mounts the horse without dignifying the demon with so much as a glance. Even this ignorant creature must surely take that hint.

“You need me here,” he says in that infuriating low voice of his. “Her pain was so loud, but yours was louder. You need me.”

“You must have me mistaken for someone else,” she informs him, and venom in her own voice is as potent as any wyvern’s. “Now get out of my way, demon, or be run down. I don’t have time for your games.”

“It’s not a game.” Perhaps he senses the urgency in her, unnerving as it is to think of such a thing, because this time he doesn’t try to waste her times with riddles and mysteries. This time, he simply looks at her with that same silly look on his face, expectant, as though he really does believe she wants him here. “Layers of grief, but the guilt grinds, grates, a garrotte around your neck. Sharp, severing, searing, it snaps like a bowstring—”

“That is enough.”

And perhaps that is the problem; oblique as his turn of phrase is, it is. _Enough_ , not simply for him but for her as well. It awakens something in her, a thought she’d kept so deeply buried it was all but forgotten, pressed down carefully between the pages of her alchemy book, burned away in the magical fires that brewed the precious elixir. In an instant, a single word, she knows why he’s here. She can feel the truth of it simmering below the surface, in her not in him, and she loathes it as surely as she loathes his voice.

It is all too easy to keep from thinking about it when her mind and her heart are focused on Bastien. All too easy to keep from drowning in guilt and gracelessness when she need only close her eyes to see his face, to remember her own higher purpose, her place by his side. All too easy, yes, but with the elixir made and nothing ahead of her now but the hours before she can see him, it is not so easy to hold those other thoughts at bay, not so easy to silence the parts of her that feel precisely what the demon says. _Guilt_ , and unwelcome memories of blood on Sera’s lips.

“Seeping, staining, sickening. It burns in the blood, burns and breathes and breaks. Hurting, hateful, horrible, you try to turn away, but you can’t. You have to help.”

The words lash, a memory of her Harrowing, another kind of demon. She reminds herself again of what he is, how dangerous, and shakes her head. “I do not _have to_ do anything, demon.”

He looks at her, eyes shadowed by the brim of his ridiculous hat. “Your mouth and your heart say different things,” he says, as though this is a dinner conversation, as though she is not itching to get away from him, to take her place at dear Bastien’s side. “Did you know that?”

Vivienne sighs. She is not so crass as Sera, and she would never debase herself by cursing aloud, but for a moment or two the idea is sinfully tempting. She wishes to leave, but knowingly or not Cole has tapped into a corner of her that feels bound to be here, bound to remain at Sera’s side until she recovers…

…or does not. She doesn’t want to think of that, the unpleasant alternative, the possible truth in what the demon said. _She might die,_ he told her, and Vivienne heard, _because of you_.

But her place is not here. Her place is with Bastien, not Sera, and the selfish little troublemaker would no doubt be the first to say so. In far cruder terms, perhaps, but she would say it just the same. _‘Didn’t throw away my bloody life so you could have second thoughts, you daft tit,’_ or something equally vulgar, and she would be right to say it, right to remind Vivienne that the task ahead is more important than the bodies left scattered behind. Foolish to let such a sacrifice go to waste, no matter how much that unwanted little corner of her heart may wish it could help. What’s done is done, is it not?

Cole clears his throat, apparently taking her silence as an invitation to start speaking again. “Simmering, seething, stirred to solution. A heart as white as snow, and you laughed because you think that yours is dark and cold.”

Vivienne glares at him. “Demon…”

“Help,” he says, quite simply. “You fight with yourself, and so does she, but it’s different. She hides, hates, hurts, but you know that you can’t. You know you can’t hide, but sometimes you look at her and remember when you could. She is small and slight; you call her _silly_ and smile when she’s not looking. She helps you remember.”

“She does no such thing,” Vivienne snaps, because this is too close, too much, too _painful_.

“She does,” he says. “Sweeter, simpler, softer. Safe and sound, before the Circle said ‘sanctuary’. Smiling, silly, small. Perfect and peaceful, a piece of something precious, someone profound. A piece of you.” He gazes up at her, and his eyes burn like veilfire, unnatural and hypnotic. “It would be very sad if you let it die.”

Vivienne sighs. She understands, now, what he’s after. Perhaps she already knew, even before he arrived; he must have plucked the thought from somewhere, after all, and he did say that she was the one who needed him here. Demons work in odd ways, she knows, and this one certainly does; in just the few weeks since the Inquisitor invited him to stay, she has seen it countless times. Never with her, though; until now he has been sensible enough to stay away, out of her mind and out of her presence. Perhaps he sensed the animosity in her, or perhaps he simply valued her privacy. Whatever the reason, until now, he has kept his distance.

So, then, perhaps there is some measure of truth to his claims after all, some fragment of honesty, because she looks at him now, and she understands.

The vial is as dark as pitch, inside and out, blocking out every last drop of light to preserve the potion within. She holds it as carefully as she would her own child, if such a thing were possible, blocking out Cole’s demon eyes, eerie and unblinking. This is delicate work, and she will not let him distract her.

She manipulates the elixir with her magic, as carefully as she can; she does not want to disturb it any more than is absolutely necessary. Even just this, the tiniest droplet, could upset the entire thing, could ruin its chances of saving the one who truly matters. The tiniest droplet, and for what? Is it worth it? Will it even make a difference? She could be throwing away everything that ever mattered, everything important to her, and all for the sake of a childish nobody who happened to do a good deed for once in her miserable little life. It is beyond absurd.

And yet, in spite of herself, in spite of everything she has ever claimed to be, she finds that she must. As the demon said, she needs him to be here, needs to do this. She cannot sit idly by when she has a possible solution in her hands. Whatever he may be, spirit or demon or whatever else, Cole was right about that: somewhere deep inside her, in a place she had all but forgotten, Vivienne finds that she is desperate to help.

This is why he came to her. She realises this now, because as she raises that single precious droplet, watches it catch the light for just the briefest of moments, she finds that he is already prepared. A vial of his own, as dark as hers, held aloft to catch the moisture as she closes her eyes and lets it fall.

A single droplet, nothing more, and yet it feels like a part of her, a part of Bastien. She thinks of him, waiting in Val Royeaux, worsening by the second, and prays that she is wrong.

She looks to the boy, eyes cold as she tucks the remaining potion back into her pouch. “Go,” she commands, and this time she leaves no room for argument. “It is already degrading, and now it has caught the light as well. There’s no guarantee that it will have the desired effect in the first place — you must understand, it was never intended as an antidote for this sort of thing. It is meant to be a means of countering… a means of extending…”

She trails off, discomfited, but for once the demon seems wholly uninterested in what she has to say.

“You mean well,” he says, as though that justifies everything she has done, as though it justifies Sera lying in the infirmary, as though one life can ever justify another. “Sometimes you don’t see it, but you do. Your heart is pure. Not like snow, not…” He trails off. “You’re not a wyvern. Wounded, wailing, its dying breath shakes the earth. _A noble beast,_ you think, but you’ve never seen one, and you think that’s not right. You think, _it won’t hurt anyone again, but I still can, I still will_. You think it’s unfair, you think it should be you instead, but you’re wrong. Its heart only helps when it’s dead, but yours doesn’t. Yours only helps when you’re here.”

Vivienne clears her throat quickly, because she cannot allow herself to dwell on this line of thought. It is absurd, she tells herself. Absurd. And yet…

“Be that as it may,” she says, ignoring the roughness in her throat. “My point remains. Whatever help the potion may give grows less with every second you waste here. If you truly wish to help, you will take it to her _now_.”

He does not hesitate. He doesn’t even ask her how to administer the elixir, how it works; perhaps he has pried the information out of her mind already, intrusive and crude as he so often is. Perhaps. But if so, Vivienne finds that for once she does not care. This time, and only this time, let him use whatever demonic trickery he likes; if it will get him out of her way and back to his place at Sera’s side, then just this once she will allow almost anything. Once, and only once.

The sun flashes in her eyes; for a moment she is blinded, and when her vision clears she finds that she is alone, her thoughts empty but for a fading vision of sunlight on moisture.

It is a needless thought, frivolous at a time like this, and she shakes it off with a shrug and a sigh. Now is not the time for such things. She presses her heels into the horse’s side, and thinks no more of it.

The Imperial Court Enchanter has an appointment to keep.

*


	2. Chapter 2

*

The journey, as it turns out, is a complete waste.

For all her efforts, Bastien dies, as surely as he would have if she had never made the trip at all. Vivienne is not nearly so fortunate; she is left alive, alone, with nothing to do but torture herself with all the things she could have done, should have done, might have done. Grasping, desperate for an explanation, an answer, for some way to lay the blame on herself, her decisions, her actions, for the ravages of time and bad luck on a good man taken too soon.

Would it have made a difference, she wonders, if she had spurred the horse to run faster on the outbound journey? The trip was not especially short, but she’d thought it left her with ample time; would an extra few hours have been the difference between life and death? Could she have been more careful when concocting the elixir in the first place? Such a delicate formula, teeming with little things that could have gone wrong; can she truly say, with absolute certainty, that everything was done to perfection? Did she triple-check the silverite to elfroot ratio? Could she have waited another split-second before adding the wyvern’s heart? Was the potion kept dark enough to survive the journey?

Futile questions, she knows, but she cannot help herself. Her Bastien, her darling, is dead, and she has failed him. And if it wasn’t her fault — if she truly did everything she could; if it truly was the Maker’s will that Bastien return to His side — then perhaps the world is not so fair as she once believed.

She does not linger in Val Royeaux for very long. As earnestly as she might wish it, that is not her place. Truth be told, perhaps it never was. This dalliance between them was accepted for what it was, but the idea that it might become more was preposterous at best; even after the duchess’s passing, it would have caused a scandal to hear him speak of Vivienne as ‘family’, to hear him say ‘beloved’ in a place where anyone could hear him. It was a dalliance, in line with the fashion, but of course it could never truly _mean_ anything. They both knew that from the beginning, both understood the rules of the game — the small and the Grand — and both enjoyed the simple pleasures of what they had. If they ever found themselves dreaming of something deeper on their more idealistic days… well, surely no-one can be blamed for daring to dream.

But now it is over, the sweet dreams and harsher reality, and Vivienne must now take her place. In particular, she must remind herself that she has none.

What she does have is a duty. It falls to her to inform the immediate family, the _true_ family, to offer help where it is wanted and grace where it is not. Other formalities also must be organised, of course — services, invitations, speeches to the Court — and that will no doubt fall to her as well. A sad fact, but there it is: funerals do not arrange themselves.

She returns to Skyhold as swiftly as possible, not simply because it is where she is needed but because it is where she is most comfortable. The tasks before her are maudlin and morbid, and she would sooner perform them in the fortress that has become her home. She isn’t sure when it happened, when she began thinking of herself as a _part_ of the Inquisition, rather than simply one of its _members_ , and yet here she is, spurring her exhausted horse into a gallop, aching down to her bones for the warmth and familiarity of Skyhold’s hearth.

The Inquisitor offers the appropriate sympathies, of course. He may not understand the Orlesian way of doing things, _her_ way of doing things, but he makes an admirable effort just the same, saying the proper words like a seasoned player of the Game. If he holds any grudges about the wyvern incident, he keeps them carefully hidden, understanding that now is not the time, and the anger that met her the last time they spoke is all but gone now.

“If I can help you…” he says, as though it truly is so easy to mend a broken heart.

She shakes her head, musters a suitably tragic sigh, the artful air of the bereaved, and steps out onto the balcony because she does not trust herself to dismiss him with words. That is all; in an instant the meeting is over, another notch in the bedpost for the Inquisitor. In all likelihood, they will never discuss the matter again.

Far below, the rest of Skyhold goes about its business, just as he does. They mill about, darting here and there as though nothing has happened at all, as though the world is not a darker place than it was before. Ignorant and foolish, she thinks, and every one of them undeserving of their place here. The world would tear itself apart before they even glanced up to see it.

Maker, how she envies them.

*

It is hours later, when the worst of the grief has passed, that the demon pays her a visit.

“You helped.”

Vivienne closes her eyes. It is not the greeting she wanted, and whatever his intention it certainly does not help _her_. The burnt-out sorrow has, for the most part, left her pleasantly hollow, but she can tell already that this conversation will bring it all back to the surface. Already, she feels a headache brewing behind her eyes, and she itches to massage her forehead, to try and preclude the dull throb, but she does not dare show such weakness in front of the demon. Of everyone in Skyhold, he is the one who least deserves it.

“Begone,” she says. “Your presence is not wanted here.”

She feels like she has said this a thousand times, and yet still he remains, just as he always does.

Part of her wishes that he was a true demon, the kind that walks the Fade and steps through, showing itself in all its horrendous glory, the kind that makes no secret of its desires. Those demons, she can banish almost without a thought, can cast them aside like a child’s unwanted toys; those demons, she has been fighting all her life, but this one is something else entirely. This is a demon in human form; he has not possessed the poor man who ones owned his body, and as a result he cannot simply be banished. He is an exception to the rules she has held dear for all her life, and the very sight of him is a painful reminder of all the things she cannot fight. He is _different_ , and that makes him the most dangerous demon of all.

“You helped,” he says again, as though repeating it will do any good, as though she has the least interest in his cryptic mumblings when Bastien is dead and her heart is broken.

It is a simple matter, then, to blame the grief for the way she fails to hold her tongue, the way she cannot bring herself to ignore him like she should. It is shameful, she knows, but she cannot help herself. She attacks him because he is there, because he will not judge her and even if he did he is a demon and she does not care. She attacks him because she aches to attack something, aches for an enemy that she can fight, an enemy that she can vanquish and use its scattered remains to remind herself that she, at least, is indestructible.

“I did no such thing, demon.”

She says the word with such contempt, such hatred, that he actually cringes. “You—”

“ _No_.” There is violence in the word. “And I will thank you not to say such things.” She sighs, forces her tone to soften, if only because it is unbecoming for a lady to raise her voice. “If you must know the truth of it, and apparently you must, I did not help at all. Quite the contrary, in fact: my dearest Bastien is dead, and I am…” But she can’t bring herself to say it, to whisper the word that has been echoing in her mind ever since he slipped away. _Alone_. Even thinking it is a burden she can scarcely bear. “I failed, demon. I failed Bastien, and I failed myself. And I will not allow an abomination to stand in front of me as though it understands and make baseless claims to the contrary. Accept the truth, as I have.”

He shakes his head. Earnest, perhaps a little too much; the shaggy mane of his hair and the oversized brim of his hat makes him look like a Fereldan dog shaking off rainwater. “Not him,” he says, and it is all Vivienne can do to keep from lashing out with a spell, freezing his tongue or scorching it. “No, no. Not him. No-one could help him, not even you. Despondent, desolate, desperate, he was doomed. You couldn’t help him. But he wasn’t the only one hurting. She still hurts, but you helped.”

That’s all it takes, and just like that she understands precisely what he’s talking about. “Sera.”

He nods, almost mustering a smile. “It helped. You helped.”

It is offensive, the way he speaks, the way he implies that this is something to be proud of, that it is somehow a worthy trade, Sera’s life for Bastien’s, as though the two names could even be spoken in the same sentence. If she wasn’t already half-blind with fury, that alone would have driven her there.

“That is not comforting,” she says aloud, biting down on her tongue to keep from saying something far less polite. “In fact, it is quite the opposite. She means nothing to me.”

He nods again, as though he understands, though of course that’s impossible. More likely, he is simply trying to placate her, trying to back out of an unpleasant situation now that he’s seen it won’t bring the comfort he anticipated.

“She can help you, too.”

The very idea is horrific, and Vivienne doesn’t even bother to hide her shudders. “I very much doubt that.”

“She can.” His conviction only makes her more certain that he is talking utter nonsense, though she has the good manners to let him finish. “Old hurts and old hates, young hands healing old hearts. Life, love, loneliness, lost and longing. _Live, my darling. Live_.” He raises his head, bright eyes locked on hers, and this time Vivienne shudders for an entirely different reason. “He was ready.”

“I…” For the first time, she is lost for words. “Indeed.”

He nods again, eager, as though he has found the key to an old forgotten door, as though he has unravelled some deep dark mystery. Vivienne doesn’t want to know what kind of thoughts are going through his demonic head, why a single word can make him so happy, but she doesn’t get the chance to ask him. Not that she would, of course, but it is frankly impolite, the way he doesn’t allow her to turn the tide of their discourse. _He_ is finished here, so of course that means _she_ must be finished as well.

Perhaps it is for the best, then, that he does not see the fire in her eyes as he turns to leave, because it would probably incinerate him on the spot.

“She can help you,” he says again, voice as soft as his steps. “You should let her.”

*

It is not for his sake that she goes there.

She tells herself this again and again as she descends the stairs, counting each step down to the infirmary with the same attention and focus she gave to Bastien’s potion. She is not here because a demon told her to come; she is here because she wishes to be here. That is the difference, and it is imperative that she remember it.

She does not believe his hollow claims, of course. She does not believe anything he says, not for a moment, and even if she did it would not be enough to drive her from her duty. No. She is here simply because it is _right_ , because it is as much her responsibility to deal with Sera as it is to contact Bastien’s family, to deal with the chantry, to address the Court; it is her responsibility to ensure that no-one else dies for her failure, and that naturally includes the one who took a near-fatal blow in her name.

Sera’s condition has improved somewhat since the last time Vivienne saw her, though not as much as she would have liked. Laziness, she tells herself, because the alternative is too deep a cut.

At the very least, she’s conscious now; it’s a small victory in the long run, but it’s something. She’s sat cross-legged on her bedroll, looking miserable and bored, and Vivienne tries not to look too hard at the dark shadows under her eyes. She is gaunt and pale and painfully thin; in short, she has the look of someone who has been through a long and harrowing illness.

She brightens considerably when she sees Vivienne, though, and it is a testament to how terrible she looks that Vivienne doesn’t even bother to chastise her when she throws up her arms and hollers “Vivvy!” loudly enough to wake the dead.

She also doesn’t bother, either, to wonder where the sudden enthusiasm has sprung from, why the foolish little urchin who so detests her would make such a show of being excited to see her. It is not her concern to worry about such things, and she shrugs off the disgusting display as a side-effect of whatever toxin still lingers in her bloodstream, delirium or desperation for attention. In any event, she has long since given up the effort at seeking sense in anything Sera does. Another of her juvenile little quirks, probably.

Besides, she no doubt has few enough visitors; who else would waste their time coming down here, after all? Loneliness, as the demon says; nothing more. So, instead of commenting on it, Vivienne simply shakes her head, dismissing the greeting with a wave of her hand.

She pitches her expression very carefully when their eyes meet, though, exaggerating the disdain perhaps a little more than she needs to. Sera delights in antagonising her, and it seems at least a little in being antagonised right back; though she will deny it if questioned, it’s possible that she plays up the look of disgust rather more for Sera’s sake than for her own.

“It’s nice to see your injury has not impeded your talents for being childish,” she says, and musters a sharp-toothed smile. “I trust you’re feeling better than you were the last time I was here?”

Sera blinks, as though confused, and it is a shamefully long moment before Vivienne realises that she may not remember her last visit. She was not exactly conscious, after all, though given their history it would surprise her if Cole has not filled her in on the details.

Regardless, the moment passes quickly, and Sera ducks her head as Vivienne draws closer. The shyness is uncharacteristic of her, as is the way she hides her face behind her hair; it is almost as though embarrassed by the way she looks, afraid of what Madame de Fer might think of her. The idea is preposterous, of course, and Vivienne wants to shout at her for it. There is a great deal in Sera that warrants some humility, but not even Vivienne would think to chasten her for appearing ill when she so evidently is.

“Good enough,” Sera mutters after a moment, and though there is something to be said for her willingness to put on airs, Vivienne is far from convinced by the facade. A point for the effort, she supposes, though none for the execution. “Just hope it was worth it. The way I feel, it bloody better be.”

“Loathe as I am to disappoint you…” It is a great effort to sound derisive and not merely sad. “I’m afraid it was not.”

Sera blanches even paler, if such were possible. “Shite.”

“Not the most erudite expression of sympathy,” Vivienne says. “But given the circumstances, I’ll accept it.”

Grunting curses from the back of her throat, Sera lies back down on the bedroll. She’s quite deliberate in the way she moves, and more graceful than her appearance would suggest; she makes a point of rolling onto her side to give Vivienne a perfect view of her backside, as though she truly believes such a thing could ever be offensive. Still, despite her best efforts, she sounds so pitiful, choking off miserable noises as she tries to get comfortable, that Vivienne can’t bring herself to even acknowledge the intended slight. Such a foolish little thing, clinging to her posturing, even now. Not that the Imperial Court Enchanter is in any position to throw stones on that particular matter, of course, but still. Silly girl; her energies would be better spent in straightening out the lines on her face.

She shakes her head, secure in the knowledge that Sera won’t see, and kneels beside the bedroll. “It occurs to me that I did not thank you,” she says; the segue is a clumsy one, but neither of them are in any condition to care. “You were hardly in any condition to hear me the last time I was here, and I…”

Sera snorts. Vivienne expects a cutting remark, but none comes.

Vivienne clears her throat, continues. “In any event, your courage in taking down the snowy wyvern was greatly appreciated. Idiotic, yes, but appreciated nonetheless. So much so, in fact, that for the time being I will overlook your continued obsession with rifling through my personal property as though it was your own.”

“Dunno what you’re talking about,” Sera says, but her shoulders are shaking as though with the effort of not laughing.

Vivienne swallows another sigh. “Of course you don’t. Regardless, it is in your best interest to take a kindness when it is offered. I will not always be so lenient or so forgiving, and…” Sera cuts her off with another childish noise, and so Vivienne drops the feint at chivalry entirely. “What I’m saying, my dear, is that you had best ensure that your wounds are thoroughly healed before you attempt such a thing again.”

Sera does laugh now, or tries to; the sound hitches wetly in her throat, though, ominous and unpleasant, as though she’s about to vomit. “Sure, _Vivvy_. Whatever you say.”

“Do not take that tone with me.”

Given their current situation, the command is a cruel one. Unfair, but it seems that she simply cannot help herself where Sera is concerned. It’s rather unfortunate, though certainly mutual; Sera is still far from recovered, and Vivienne knows that she owes her a great deal. If they cannot be civil with each other now, under these circumstances, there must truly be no hope at all. Sad, but such is the way of things when two violent opposites are forced to work towards a common goal.

Sera tries to laugh again, as though to validate herself; this time, it sounds more like choking. No less brutal and certainly no less unpleasant, it sounds like blood trapped in the lungs of the dying.

“You’re a right bitch, Lady Whatever. You know that? Frigging almost died for you.”

“You…” But what can she say? It’s true enough, is it not? “You are a stupid, stupid girl.”

And yet, in a stroke of pure madness, she finds herself reaching out, touching Sera’s shoulder as it tightens, squeezing ever so lightly until the tension in her body unwinds itself. She has no idea why she does it, what could have possibly possessed her to make such a gesture, but when Sera relaxes, rolling over so that Vivienne can see her face — all of it, this time, even the lines of suffering and sleeplessness — the ache that swells in her chest is both unexpected and painfully familiar. _Bastien,_ she thinks, and doesn’t stop to wonder where the name came from.

Sera swallows, bites her lip. “Soft touch, you.”

Vivienne turns away, remembering too vividly the bubbling of blood and bile, pale skin turned paler from the toxin within. “Hardly. I am simply repaying a debt.” She forces a smile, exaggerates her coldest contours because she will not allow rumours of her being a ‘soft touch’ to circulate. “You did slay the beast for me, after all. And put yourself in danger. Idiotic, yes, but I suppose that is to be expected of you. Besides, the idiocy of a gesture does not diminish its value, and yours was valuable indeed.”

“Valuable, my arse. Didn’t do any good, did it? Didn’t even…” She trails off, breath rattling in her chest. It is a painful, sickening noise. “Ugh, whatever. Doesn’t matter any more, does it? Done now. Bloody frigging _done_.”

As deeply as it hurts, Vivienne cannot deny that. She nods, sighs, and takes a moment to study Sera’s face, her body, all the parts of her that look so weak. She keeps it brief, because the sight still makes her deeply uncomfortable, but she owes it to them both to see just how much this ‘valuable gesture’ has cost.

It is not about a wound and a flush of toxins any more. The gash on Sera’s side is mostly healed by now, and that should offer some comfort, but it does not. She’s still tightly bandaged, and the white cotton serves as a stark reminder of what happened and why. The toxin, whether fully purged from her system or not, is clearly still taking its toll; her skin is the colour of death, as pale as a necromancer’s puppet, and Vivienne has not missed the bones visible at her ribs and back. Sera has never been especially healthy-looking — a life of back-alleys and sleeping on the streets is written all over her body, from her skinniness to her scars — but this is beyond even her. She has the look of someone who has not eaten in days, but is too unwell to even think of changing that. She will be recovering, Vivienne can tell, long after she’s released from the infirmary.

The guilt surges up again, rising like a scream in her throat, and she stifles it by squeezing Sera’s shoulder again, a little harder this time. She can feel the bones there, too, sharp and accusing, and she pulls her hand away as though it’s been burned. The feeling seethes, sears, and coupled with the raw grief when she thinks of her darling Bastien, it makes her feel impossibly old. Weary, right down to her soul.

What was the demon thinking, telling her that this would help?

“I should go.” The words come out in a rush, almost violent, and Sera flinches. Vivienne turns away, eyes on the far wall. “I have… there are matters I must attend to. Important matters. I don’t have the luxury of wasting my time here…”

She does not say _‘with you’_ , but she can tell that’s the only thing Sera hears. “Right,” she says, and it is astounding how much violence she can force into a voice so weak. “Because that’s all I am, innit? A waste of your precious bloody time.”

“That is not what I said, Sera.”

“Whatever, _Vivvy_.” She yanks her shoulder free, rolls over again. Lying there, face pressed into the pillow, she looks almost like a child, sullen and shaking and incredibly small. The sight makes Vivienne ache all over. “Ugh. Should’ve just let the stupid wyvern go.”

Vivienne thinks of Bastien. She remembers the look on his face as he passed away, the strength bleeding out of his fingertips as she held them tight. She thinks of the moment, of hope turned to horror in two broken heartbeats, his as it stops and hers as it quickens, urgency and desperation and pain. She thinks of Sera, too, the last time she was here, spluttering and semiconscious, lips drawn and cracked, bright with blood and bile, remembers the spasms that shook her body, so like the shudders that rocked Bastien to his final slumber. So much suffering, she thinks, and all for her.

She sighs, as she has done a hundred times before, and swallows the guilt, as she has done a thousand. She cannot afford to dwell on these things, cannot allow herself to be weak here, now, _ever_. So, instead, she steels herself, skirts rustling as she sweeps to her feet, eyes as hard as the iron of her nickname when she casts them over Sera’s too-thin limbs.

“Given the outcome, my dear,” she says, “I’m rather inclined to agree.”

*

Cole is waiting on the balcony when she returns.

“Why?” he asks.

It is a simple question, but infuriating, and he doesn’t seem the least bit surprise when she lashes out at him almost before the syllable is out. A bolt of frost flashes from her fingertips, barely skimming his oversized hat; she will deny, of course, that she missed on purpose to spare him injury, though everyone knows that Madame de Fer never misses by accident.

Regardless of its impotence, it feels pleasant simply to have taken the shot at all. It is empowering, in an embarrassing sort of way, and it helps her to vent a fraction of the half-blind rage that has been simmering from the moment Bastien took his dying breath. Fury is not nearly as socially acceptable as grief or heartbreak, after all, and a few artful tears aimed at a sympathetic face do little to muffle it. A frostbolt aimed at a demon’s head, on the other hand, works wonders, and perhaps that is why he accepts the shot without so much as blinking; isn’t he always rambling about ‘help’? Well, that certainly did.

She does not lower her hand, even when the moment is over. She keeps her arm outstretched, a wordless threat, a warning that the next one will not miss, that all he needs to do is give her a reason.

“You know nothing,” she tells him, ignoring his question. “You’re a demon, and a cruel one. I shouldn’t have listened to you. I shouldn’t have…”

But she trails off, because going further would mean admitting that perhaps she did go to the infirmary after all, that perhaps she did listen, did take his words to heart. She cannot do that, of course, not while there is breath in her body, and so the sentence dies there.

It is enough, apparently, because his face falls like a small child being told ‘no’. “I didn’t mean to be cruel,” he says. “I just wanted to help.”

“A lovely sentiment, I’m sure. But good intentions often lead to dark corners, my dear, and yours are no exception.” She smiles for a moment, pleased with the metaphor. Bastien would be proud. “I hope this will be a lesson to you, demon, and that you’ll think twice before meddling in my affairs again. And _hers_ , as well.”

It feels peculiar to say that, almost unnatural. She has no reason to care about Sera in the first place, and less still to worry about the effect of Cole’s unintelligible mumblings on her recovery, and yet she finds that the words are out before she even thinks to question them.

“Her?” he echoes, playing the fool as he so often does.

“Yes, imbecile. Her. _Sera_. She doesn’t need help any more than I do.”

“But she does!” He doesn’t raise his voice often, but when he does it carries a great deal of weight. Again, Vivienne curses herself for listening, and yet something in his urgency compels her to do so. “And so do you. You too, you two. Two, together, taking and tempering, tending, trying. You could, you should, but you won’t, and I don’t understand why.” He shakes his head, like a Fereldan puppy shaking off rain. “You don’t need me, but you do need her. And she needs you. You have to help, have to heal. It will be very bad if you don’t.”

Vivienne has heard quite enough of this, and she’s not shy about saying so. “Then by all means, allow us to make our own mistakes,” she snaps. “If you’re right, no doubt the truth will make itself known in due course. Until it does, however, may I suggest that you find some other unfortunate buffoon to terrorise into doing your bidding?”

“Terrorise,” he echoes, and Vivienne braces for another stream of needless nonsense. “Terrors, tamed until tender, trained until they’re Tranquil. Taken, like you think he was. He wasn’t. Gone, just gone, but you think _taken_. Taken too soon, taken home. Tragic, but your thoughts make it true. You twist and turn, take them apart, take them back. But she’s different. You shake the ground, but she just shakes. Trembles, tremors down to her toes, taking herself apart. Taking, taken, take. _Take it away, take it away, take it away_ …”

“Yes,” she sighs, hoping to cut him off before he disappears entirely into his own ramblings. “Please, do that.”

“I can’t.” It’s a simple statement, but Vivienne is momentarily thrown by the way he says it, so matter-of-fact and blasé, as though this was all fact, as black-and-white as Cullen’s military reports. “Only you can.”

She sighs again. At this point, she would almost agree to anything if it would get him to leave her alone, but her Circle training won’t allow her to give in to the whims of demons. It is what he wants from her, she reminds herself, and steels her spine; it wants her to yield, to do as it commands, to listen and convince herself that she is doing its bidding of her own volition. It may couch its desires in sweet ideals and endless gibberish, but it is a demon just the same, and though others in the Inquisition may have conveniently forgotten this fact, Vivienne has not and never well.

“Very well,” she says, pitching her tone as high and haughty as she can. “I shall do it myself, then.”

His expression is a portrait of absurdity, sudden hop,y fleeting confusion, then crushing disappointment, all pouring across his face like paint spilled on a canvas. He wants to believe that she is talking about whatever nonsense he’s thinking, but that preternatural sense of his tells him that she’s not, that she never would. He knows that she is talking about banishing him, not surrendering, knows everything she’s thinking, even the cruel things, though he no doubt wishes he didn’t. If he were human, the look on his face would be equal parts comic and tragic; in a demon wearing human clothing, it is merely another Fade fabrication to ignore.

She turns. No, more than simply turning, she _sweeps_ away from him; it is a perfectly practised motion, a dismissal that uses her entire body, beginning with a tilt of her head and spreading to her shoulders, arms, hips, and finally her legs, until there is no part of her left facing him, until she is striding away and he has no choice but to watch her every step.

Bastien taught her that particular skill, how to speak with every part of her body, how to keep every limb, every joint, every muscle independent so that they might each speak separately, each lending its own voice to whatever sentiment she needs to put across — in this case, disdain and derision, and a choice few other D-words that Cole would no doubt delight in reeling off at random. It serves her well here, just as it always has; she has perfected the art of knowing without looking, and she can feel the disappointment radiating from the demon without ever needing to turn and see it for herself. A flawless move, executed to perfection; if only darling Bastien could see her now.

Foolish as he may be, Cole seems he knows better than to follow her. She schools her thoughts carefully as she goes, pushes down everything that he could read as feeling, and pushes the hurt down twice as far. It infuriates her to take such measures, of course, but she knows that his kind feed on it and the security means more to her than the affront at being forced to do something she doesn’t want to. All she wants is to feel her pain in peace and privacy, but it seems that she is as much on display here in Skyhold as she always was id Val Royeaux. Even her mind, it seems, is not truly her own.

Then again, of course, it never was. After all, what’s one more place where she cannot be herself?

Regardless, it is no great task to school her thoughts, to lock away the parts of her that she knows the demon can feed from. If the idiotic creature won’t be banished by commands, perhaps he’ll be banished by starvation instead. Even he cannot survive on good intentions alone, not when his supply of pain or whatever he thrives on is all but drained dry. Perhaps, when Sera is feeling better, Vivienne can teach her to do it as well; that would keep Cole away from them both, and perhaps go some way to repaying her debt.

In any case, it seems like she will have to speak with the Inquisitor about him. _Again_ , she thinks with no small measure of bitterness; this is far from the first time they’ll have this conversation and no doubt far from the last as well. It is bad enough that he insisted on this in the first place, that he thought it would be a good idea to keep a demon as a pet, but that the little pest keeps trying to ‘help’ is rude at best. The Inquisitor is the one who brought him here,and so it is his duty to stop this troublesome behaviour before it gets any worse.

It would be offensive enough if Cole spoke only with those foolish enough to call him ‘friend’; let him torment Varric and Solas with his empathy, if he must torment someone. But no, it seems that even this small courtesy is beyond him. It is not that he has these intentions in the first place that so affronts her; it is that he keeps bringing them to _her_ , and to little Sera as well. Sera, who is not merely offended by the creature, but actively _terrified_ of him. In Vivienne’s case, it is a challenge; in Sera’s, it is simply cruel.

Regardless of the technicalities, though, the matter should be simple. She and Sera have both told the demon, repeatedly, to leave them alone, and yet it seems that is not enough. No matter what they say, no matter how fervently they push him away, still he comes to them, still he feeds on their innermost thoughts, their most private traumas. Still, he picks them apart, piece by piece, as though it is his right to intrude not only on their personal space but on their personal pain. That is unacceptable.

All Vivienne wants is to be free from this nonsense. All she wants is to mourn her beloved Bastien in peace, alone and without complications. No irate Inquisitors, no venom-addled elves, and absolutely no meddling demons.

Is that truly so much to ask?

*

Unsurprisingly, it seems that it is.

Vivienne supposes she should have expected the Inquisitor to be less than helpful. He dotes on the demon, and there is nothing especially new in the way she raises her brows and tells him to put a leash on it. So far as he’s concerned, this is the very same debate that they’ve had a thousand times before: she doesn’t trust spirits, and he does. From his perspective, safely locked up inside his own ignorance, that is all it is. A difference of opinion, nothing more.

He doesn’t see the true problem. He doesn’t see, or perhaps he simply doesn’t wish to see the invasion of privacy. It is not something petty and harmless, like Sera rifling through her underwear drawer or Dorian scribbling notes in the margins of her most cherished tomes. Cole doesn’t simply invade her quarters or deface her property; he invades the deepest parts of her mind, her heart, and — most sinful of all — he does not even bother to ask permission.

“He’s just trying to help,” the Inquisitor says.

He’s being deliberately gentle with her, stepping on eggshells as though afraid of upsetting her. Perhaps he believes that the weight of her grief will crush her, or else cause her to do something untoward. Her temper is known through most of Thedas, after all, and it takes far less than a little disagreement to set it off. True enough, but if he expects her to crumble under the strain as easily as that, then he clearly does not know her very well at all.

“I’m perfectly aware of what he’s trying to do,” she tells him, voice steady and even, making it clear beyond all doubt that she is in full control of her faculties. “But I did not ask for help, nor do I want it. Quite frankly, Inquisitor, even if I did need some small measure of compassion, the last place in Thedas I would seek it out is in the arms of a demon.”

He sighs; they’ve had _this_ argument a thousand times as well. “He’s not a demon. Well, not exactly. Solas says he’s more of a spirit—”

“ _Solas_ says a great many things that should be taken with a grain of salt,” Vivienne snaps. Indeed, in her opinion, the self-obsessed apostate is second only to Cole in the category of Unnecessary Threats The Inquisition Would Be Better Off Without. “A spirit _is_ a demon.”

“Not necessarily…” He stops short of actually making a debate out of it, though, perhaps out of sympathy, and changes direction with all the grace of a dying bogfisher. “Never mind. I don’t want to argue about this again, and he’s clearly upset you.”

“Again,” Vivienne says, quite pointedly.

The Inquisitor nods, though he doesn’t say anything to affirm the point. “I’ll have a word with him.”

She nods, acknowledging the gesture without gratitude; this is nothing less than his duty, and she will not fawn at his feet like some mindless servant. He may be the Inquisitor, the Herald of Andraste, and born to nobility, but she is Madame de Fer, and in this she is right.

“Please do,” she says. “Apparently, it will not listen to anyone else.” The point made, she forces herself to soften a little; she did not come here to argue any more than he did, and there is no need to belabour this. “I apologise if I sound ungracious, Inquisitor. I’m sure you understand that this is not an easy time for me. Bastien’s body is hardly cold…” She pauses, artful and suggestive; it is another of her talents to paint a picture of emotion without actually allowing herself to feel it, and she uses it well here. “Well, no need for the messy details; you know the situation as well as I do, I’m sure. My point is, surely you must understand why I might not appreciate a de— a _spirit_ of his sort poking around in my head at present.”

“Of course,” he says.

The agreement is entirely _too_ agreeable, and Vivienne notices it; he simply wishes to placate her and be on his way. She can hardly blame him for that, really; she has taken up a great deal of his time lately, and most days he is nearly as busy as she herself is. There is no harm in letting him direct the conversation once in a while, and a part of her is almost content to let him leave it at that.

In truth, she doesn’t know what possesses her to call after him with the urgency she does. So far as the conversation goes, she’s made her concerns known, and he has been a gentleman in addressing them as he has; that is, or should be, the end of it. Still, somehow, as though controlled by some outside force, she finds herself lurching after him like some kind of commoner — worse, like a peasant — catching him by the arm no pretence to manners. It is shameful, and she doesn’t even realise until it is too late why she did it in the first place.

“One more thing, Inquisitor.” 

It is only once the words are out that her slow mind catches up with her mouth and figures out where she’s going with this. Horror tightens her throat, dread souring her stomach as he turns back, frowning, like he’s worried she’s lost her mind. This is worse than shameful, she thinks, and more humiliating still because there is no delicate way out of this. If she dismisses him again, she will look like a fool, but if she says what she’s only now realising she wants to say… well, just the thought is enough to make her shudder.

“Was there something else?” he asks.

“Just one thing.” The words come almost with a mind of their own. It is like watching a carriage careen off the side of a cliff, passengers and all; she is helpless to stop it, helpless to do anything but watch from a distance as she throws herself into the abyss. “If you are going to speak with the demon on my behalf…”

“Yes?”

She closes her eyes, hates herself. “…I don’t suppose you could speak on Sera’s as well?”

Of course, he stares at her as though he can’t believe what he’s hearing. What did she expect? If the truth be known, Vivienne can scarcely believe it herself, and she’s the one who said it. It is embarrassing, but far worse than that, it is dangerously close to a show of affection. That would be shameful enough if it were someone like Cassandra, like the Inquisitor himself, someone she truly does care for, but for _Sera_? This could ruin her.

She takes a breath, reminds herself that Sera did risk her life to obtain the wyvern’s heart, that she does still owe the girl a debt of sorts; no matter that the thing ended in pain for them both, the facts remain as they are, and Vivienne knows better than anyone how much Cole unnerves the poor thing. It is nothing less than Sera deserves, she rationalises, and once it is done the boon is lifted. Affection? Perish the thought! This is business, nothing more.

Still, though, she can see the questions already forming on the Inquisitor’s lips. He’s never been very good at keeping his thoughts hidden, and she doesn’t need to hear the questions to know what they will be, what he’s wondering. He’ll pry, of course, ask her if Sera’s pseudo-selflessness has put a nail in the coffin of their animosity, if perhaps they’ll start to get along now. He’ll ask if Vivienne has found the time to thank her yet, if she’s visited her in the infirmary, and that cannot be allowed to happen; her earlier meeting with Sera still sticks in her throat like a bone, and just thinking about it brings her mind back to Cole and his cryptic blather. She must pre-empt him before he asks. She _must_.

“Do close your mouth, darling.” The words are pointed, and ruthlessly efficient, cutting him off before he even gets a word out. “You’ll catch flies.”

To his credit, he obeys immediately. A double victory; the prying is silenced before it begins, and with a promising demonstration that perhaps his manners are not completely beyond hope.

“Of course,” he says, the only words she will permit.

“Come now, my dear,” she says, pressing on with an airy wave. “It’s hardly an unreasonable request, now, is it? The poor dear is having a terrible time after… certain events…” Even the shrouded allusion is painful, and she rushes on before the sting can start. “…and it is no secret that she detests the boy. As she rightly should, I might add; our Sera may have bread-pudding where others have common sense, but when it comes to your precious ‘spirit’ I’d say her caution is commendable.”

“Caution?” he echoes, wry and with a smile. “Is that what you call it? I’d lean closer to paranoia, myself.”

“From my understanding, darling, you lean rather too close to a great many things you should avoid entirely.”

He doesn’t argue, though she can tell that he wants to. Another point in his favour, and she acknowledges it with a tilt of her head.

“All right.” The words are amicable enough, but there’s an edge to his voice that worries her. “If it means that much to you, I’ll tell him to stay out of her way too.” His expression hardens, as though in challenge; Vivienne counters with an acid smile. “Should I tell him to stay away from the cook as well?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Vivienne says; she knows perfectly well, of course, that the suggestion was a sarcastic one, but she learned long ago to take even the most insincere jibes as though they were offers given in earnest. “If my last meal is any means to judge her talents by, a spot of demonic possession would only improve them.”

Despite himself, he chuckles, and a little of the tension ebbs away. “A fair point, I suppose.” He shrugs, shoulders loosening. “Seriously, though, Vivienne… regardless of my personal feelings on the matter, it’s wonderful to see you looking out for Sera. I may not approve of the way she talks about Cole, or the way you do for that matter, but she risked her life for your potion without even knowing what it was…”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Vivienne says, a little colder than she intended.

The Inquisitor musters an awkward cough. “Well, regardless. She was ready to die to get you that wyvern heart. Very nearly did, in fact. And I know it didn’t work out in the end… I know Bastien’s loss was a terrible blow, and I know you’re still grieving, but it’s not… that is…” He cuts himself off, perhaps sensing that he’s on very thin ice, and shakes his head. “In any case, I’m sure she’ll appreciate the gesture. Just the fact that you, of all people, cared enough to speak up on her behalf…”

“No.”

He frowns, confused all over again. “No?”

Vivienne thinks of her visit to the infirmary, how awkward it was. She remembers, with very little pride, how quickly she fell back into old bad habits, how easily Sera took offence at the slightest word. It is a maddening thing, being indebted to someone you despise, and worse still to be indebted for a deed that did no good anyway. She cannot put the thing behind her until Sera is better; she knows this, but it is excruciating to have it hanging over her head like this, infuriating to see the Inquisitor’s eyes shadowed with concern and sorrow and empathy. She is the bereaved, not Sera, and yet it seems she cannot escape the wyvern’s shadow, cannot escape the maelstrom of feelings that tear at her every time she thinks of the deranged little miscreant.

“No,” she says again, firmer. “You will not tell her about this. You will not even mention it. You… that is, if you respect me at all, you will ensure that she never hears so much as a word about it.” There is the ghost of a tremor in her voice; it is not enough for the Inquisitor to notice, of course, but _she_ notices, and that is unacceptable enough. “I will not have that parasitic little monster spreading falsehoods about my so-called ‘meddling’.”

His lips quirk, dangerously close to a smile. “You really think she’d do that?”

“Oh, I _know_ she would.” It’s true enough, though of course it has nothing to do with this particular conversation; if the look on his face is anything to go by, he knows it as well as she does, but she steels her expression just the same, and commits to the lie she’s told herself. “I will say it one more time, Inquisitor: Sera _will not_ hear about this. Are we clear?”

This time, he allows the smile. Warm, as though he is seeing through her, seeing the parts of her she’s tried so hard to conceal, the mask she’s never quite been able to leave in Val Royeaux. For a moment, he looks almost like Cole, good intentions shrouded in something unnatural, and the thought chills her to her very soul.

“As clear as crystal, Madame de Fer.” There is no sarcasm in his voice this time, just the shimmer of something else; _compassion_ , or something similarly distasteful. “I’ll see to it immediately.”

“Thank you,” she says, and leaves before he can see her shudder.

*


	3. Chapter 3

*

In the days that follow, Sera’s condition gets no better.

Vivienne doesn’t visit her for quite some time, and though the simmering guilt is only aggravated by the distance, still it is better than the alternative, than letting Sera — or, indeed, anyone — see how frayed her emotions have become. She is still too raw, too angry, and those unpleasant emotions are still dangerously close to the surface; she doesn’t trust herself not to lose control at the slightest provocation, the slightest word, the slightest anything.

She learns the details through the view from her balcony, through the mutterings of servants bustling back and forth in the great hall below her suite, and through the sober looks on the Inquisitor’s face every time they cross paths.

Selfish as the thought might be, Vivienne can’t help thinking that the whole thing is most unfair. It is sickening that she is expected to simply sweep Bastien’s death into a disused corner of her heart, never to be thought of again, while that troublemaking little elf remains in everyone’s thoughts and prayers. Sera has already had her moment of sympathy, from Vivienne herself as well as everyone else; shouldn’t that be enough? Skyhold has moved on from the whole sordid affair, and even the Inquisitor has stopped asking if Vivienne is ‘handling things’ well after her loss. _She_ is forced to heal, or at least to put up appearances of healing; why isn’t the same expected of Sera?

It is perhaps two days before she finds herself in the infirmary again, and she assures herself that it’s strictly for business purposes.

The reason is simple enough: she is working on a new poultice, a delicate alchemical creation that relies potent extracts from certain rare plants she is unfamiliar with. It is only common sense, as any alchemist will say, to learn more about their properties, and so she plans on picking at the surgeon’s brain. For all their talents, the mage healers in her social circles know very little about herbal medicines, but Vivienne knows that the surgeon is a veritable _Encyclopaedia Botanica_ on such matters; the nature of her profession necessitates a complete comprehension not only of healing herbs but of toxic ones as well. It is a perfectly valid reason for venturing down to the infirmary, she thinks, and it has absolutely nothing to do with certain _other_ things she may find there.

That she finds herself once more beside Sera’s bedroll is, of course, completely coincidental.

The surgeon is busy, patching up one of Cullen’s soldiers; the poor man has a gash in his leg as oversized as Dorian’s ego, and Vivienne can see that the stitching is delicate. The last thing she wants is to be a distraction, or worse a nuisance, and so she sets herself down in the nearest empty space to wait. That it just so happens to be Sera’s bedroll… well, she cannot help the way these things work out, can she?

Sera is curled on her side, arms wrapped around herself. She is clearly awake, and no doubt aware, but still Vivienne makes a point of sitting at her back in the vain hope that her presence will go unnoticed, or at the very least ignored. The sight of her is painful, though, and that is another reason to keep herself unseen; the last thing either of them needs is for Sera to think that she might pity her.

The poor thing is even thinner now than she was the last time Vivienne saw her, and paler as well, and though she doesn’t seem quite as pathetic, still it takes more effort than Vivienne cares to admit to stifle her distress at the sight. It is difficult enough to keep her features still, to keep from letting the shock show through on her face, but silencing the gasp that rises in her throat is physically painful. It is frustrating, how easily the reactions come when she’s here, and how hard it is to force them back down. It should be the other way around; she has spent years training herself in this, mastering the art of self-discipline, keeping her emotions schooled and silenced, and yet the sight of this suffering little creature has once again reduced her to something common, something _emotional_. 

“Know it’s you, Vivvy.”

Vivienne sighs. So much for going unnoticed, she thinks, and makes a point of scowling as Sera squirms and rolls over, eyes fever-bright and sullen as she squints up at her. Vivienne would have thought it impossible to look pathetic and petulant at the same time, and yet somehow Sera manages it without the least effort.

“Of course you do,” she says, rising to the bait in spite of herself. “Now, be a good girl and go back to sleep.”

Sera, unsurprisingly, ignores her. Even now, weak and pitiful as she is, it seems that she delights in antagonising her superiors. “Come all the way down from your iron throne just to see me?” She tries to smirk, but her face isn’t strong enough to hold the expression; she just looks tired and miserable, and she gives up with an exhausted little huff. “Suppose I should be flattered or something.”

Vivienne snorts, mostly because it’s expected of her to show some kind of derision, and Sera counters with a few mutters curse-words. There is little difference, in truth, between their respective posturing; Vhe is more erudite, of course, and Sera more juvenile, but in the end they both have their reputations to think of. That Sera makes the effort even now is commendable, Vivienne supposes, though her choice of peers is hardly comparable to her own. Miscreants and disobedient servants are hardly the kind of army to make nations tremble, after all, but dedication is dedication, and certainly she cannot fault Sera for that.

“Don’t delude yourself, darling,” she says, flashing the most condescending smile in her arsenal. “I’m here to speak with the surgeon. This was simply as good a place as any other to sit and wait.”

“Course it was,” Sera mutters, swallowing hard between syllables. “Bitch.”

“Quite.”

“Hmph.” She grunts, closes her eyes. “Least you admit it.”

Vivienne shakes her head, forcing down another sigh. It was foolish to come here, she thinks, and though she knows perfectly well that her ‘valid reasons’ were little more than flaccid excuses, still she keeps them in her mind. She is not here for Sera, she insists to herself again; she is here for the surgeon, she is sitting here simply because it was the most convenient place… so on and so forth. Easy enough to repeat the lies, but it is harder and harder with each repetition to believe them.

“I hear you’re still no better,” she hears herself say.

“Must have good ears, then,” Sera huffs, “if you can hear shit like that from all the way up in your ivory tower.”

“It is not a _tower_ ,” Vivienne says, incensed in spite of herself. “Towers are for prisoners.”

“Ugh, whatever.” She breathes slowly, through her nose, opens her eyes again after a moment or two. “Tower, balcony, frigging suite at the palace. Who cares?”

Vivienne smiles, acid and cruel. “A great many people do. But then, I wouldn’t expect you to understand. As much as you love to crow about your hardships, little Sera, life on the streets of Denerim and whatever other cesspools you’ve infested is hardly comparable to captivity, now, is it?”

“Bloody right.” She actually sounds proud of herself, the deluded little thing. “Sooner die than live like that.”

“Well, then,” Vivienne says, very softly. “Perhaps you should consider yourself fortunate, that you had the freedom to make such a choice.”

Sera doesn’t have a response to that. Vivienne does not allow her to see how much the silence satisfies her. She watches her quietly for a moment, letting the weight of the conversation hang over them, and it is a testament to how pitiful she looks, how weak and miserable, that Vivienne allows her as long as she likes to recover from the moment and return to the subject at hand. She would not allow that luxury to anyone.

“Anyway,” Sera mutters at last. “Looks like you heard right, doesn’t it?”

“I always do,” Vivienne says, a simple reminder of an equally simple fact.

Sera looks like she wants to throw out another quip, but her condition stills her before she can try. “Ugh,” she says instead, and narrows her eyes as though suffering from a terrible headache. “Frigging shite, that’s what it is. Should be over now. Bloody stupid wyvern bullshit. Should be _over_ , shouldn’t it?”

The complaint is actually a valid one, and it makes Vivienne frown. She hadn’t thought to question it before now, but Sera is more right than she realises. Beyond a doubt, the wyvern’s venom is all but gone from her system; at the very least it must be diluted to the point of uselessness. If it wasn’t, after all, she would be dead. The fact is simple, but pointed: if she is still alive after so long, it is not simply likely but certain that the threat is over… and yet, to look at her, one would assume she was in the final throes of a plague. It is not right, even unnatural, and it is only now, on hearing Sera speak and seeing how unwell she still is, that Vivienne realises it.

“Excuse me a moment,” she says, and swings to her feet.

Sera curses at her back, words fit to turn the air blue, but Vivienne ignores her. There will be time enough to counter her rudeness later, but for now she must get to the bottom of this.

The surgeon is all but finished with her unfortunate patient, and Vivienne’s own patience has worn itself thin now; this latest revelation is just the last in a long list of reasons why she needs to do something productive, something more than sitting and swapping insults with a juvenile delinquent too weak to hold her own. She strides up to the unsuspecting woman, allowing her body language and her presence to make itself known so that she need not waste her energy on words. Madame de Fer has never needed to introduce herself, and she does not plan on starting now. Her swagger speaks for itself, as effective as ever; she only has to clear her throat, and the surgeon all but jumps out of her skin.

“Lady Vivienne!” She doesn’t bow, but there’s enough respect in her tone that Vivienne lets it slide; the woman does good work, after all, and allowances must be made for that. “Is there something you need?” She lowers her eyes, respect doused by less desirable sentiments. “I heard about your… about Duke Bastien. I’m so—”

Vivienne cuts her off with a wave. “Your sympathies, though appreciated, are unnecessary.”

“Of course.” She drops the issue at once, returning to business. Vivienne greatly approves. “In any case, what can I do for you?”

Vivienne thinks of her experiments, of rare plant extracts, of her thinly-veiled excuses for coming down here in the first place. Easy enough, should she wish, to ignore Sera’s plight; transparent though they are, reasons are reasons, and there is no shame in casting aside questions that are none of her concern. The surgeon is in charge here; let her do what she thinks is best. No-one will thank Vivienne for intervening, after all.

And yet, that is precisely what she does. Automatic, the words coming almost independent of her thoughts. “What is wrong with her?”

The surgeon blinks, but otherwise keeps her surprise neatly tucked away. “I would have thought you knew that already.”

Vivienne shakes her head. “No. The venom should be purged from her system by now. The last time we spoke, she was already showing improvement. What in the name of Andraste has happened since then?”

The surgeon flinches, and it is only then that Vivienne realises how accusatory she sounds, how easily the words could be construed as a threat, a suggestion that she is not doing her job. Vivienne is a powerful woman; a single word to the right people, and the Inquisition will find itself a new surgeon within the week. That is not her intention, of course, but her position speaks louder than her intent, and she certainly understands where the panic comes from. She should have anticipated this, of course, should have controlled her voice more efficiently; it is unacceptable that she has allowed herself to be so affected, so _emotional_ about something so foolish.

“It’s not the venom,” the surgeon sighs after a moment or two, and Vivienne notes the tremor in her voice. “You’re a talented woman, Lady Vivienne; you know toxins and poisons better than half my staff, I’d wager. I won’t insult you with details you already know, but like I said, you can see the trouble for yourself.”

Vivienne glances back at Sera, scowling at them from her bedroll, propped up on one elbow. “She is ill.”

“No.” Another sigh, frustrated this time, and the tremor is gone. “She is _not_ ill. That’s the problem. The injury is healed, the venom all but gone. It’s just as you said: the threat is long since past. There’s no reason for her to still be here at all, and yet here she is, seemingly out of sheer…” She grimaces, casting a cynical eye over Sera. “I don’t want to say ‘stubbornness’…”

“Why not?” Vivienne quirks a brow, amused. “It describes her well enough.”

The surgeon winces, shakes her head. “It’s been days. She should be just fine now, or at least well enough, but she insists that she’s not. She _insists_ that the venom’s still in her, that she’s getting worse, that she’s dying.” She closes her eyes, just for a moment. “I’d send her on her way if it was just that, let her deal with it on her own time. I’m not in the habit of giving beds to hypochondriacs…”

Vivienne snorts her approval. “Quite right.”

“…but she will not allow herself to recuperate.” She’s wringing her hands now, and Vivienne chuckles; Sera has reduced her to precisely this mood more times than she can count. “She needs sustenance, Lady Vivienne. Food, water, the like. She hasn’t kept anything down since she got back from that wretched place, and even now she still won’t. Note, my lady, that I do mean _‘won’t’_ , and not _‘can’t’_. This is—”

“It’s not my frigging fault!” Sera blurts out from her bedroll, interrupting with as much violence as she can muster in her present state. Vivienne coughs to mask her smile; it is just like the silly little thing to burst in where she’s not invited, but she can’t help admiring her spirit when it comes to defending herself. “It’s _yours_ , you daft tit. You’re not looking hard enough. You’re not doing your frigging job. That shit’s still in me, someplace. It’s your fault if you’re not finding it. Your bloody fault, not mine.”

The surgeon spreads her arms, as if to say _‘I told you so’_. “As you can see, she’s far from helpful.” Another sigh; Vivienne more than empathises. “She is _not_ ill, Lady Vivienne. Let me stress that again. There’s nothing wrong with her that I can find. The venom is out of her; its symptoms should be all but gone by now, yet she insists they linger, and she’s making herself sick to prove some silly point. As I say, stubbornness…”

Vivienne, in truth, has all but stopped listening. There is something unbearably familiar in all of this, a lingering heartbreak that she’d truly hoped to have put behind her. She remembers Bastien, remembers his illness, held at bay for years by that damned elixir.

She remembers how he would insist, even days after his health returned, that he was still feeling terrible. The potion’s effects were instantaneous, of course, and his recovery was always immediate. He knew that as well as she did, and yet he would drive the nurses mad insisting that the symptoms yet lingered. The poor dears were frustrated, of course, just as the surgeon is now, and Vivienne remembers vividly the way they would shout at him, telling him again and again that it was all in his mind, that he was wishing himself into an early grave, that he didn’t _want_ to recover and so he was turning his body against itself.

It was all superstitious nonsense, of course, and it did little to help with the underlying problem, but the memory echoes now in the way the surgeon shakes her head, the way Sera whines and whimpers on her bedroll. The parallel is too close; it itches beneath her skin.

“It is not stubbornness,” she hears herself say, and her voice is unexpectedly quiet. “Well, no more so than usual, anyway.”

The surgeon growls, annoyed. “Then perhaps you’ll have better luck than I have in finding a cause for this nonsense. If she wants to throw a week’s worth of poultices and medicines into the privy just so she can retch herself dead for no good reason, I say ‘let her’.”

It’s all bluster, of course. A shameful display, but Vivienne certainly understands the sentiment; she herself says the very same thing to the Inquisitor every time Sera lands herself in trouble for a foolish trick-shot or a show of arrogance. _“If she must inflict her idiocy on the rest of us, then let her be the one to suffer for it.”_ She’s said it countless times, and the Inquisitor invariably laughs and shakes his head, knowing as he does that she’ll give in and heal the silly child just the same, because that is what good people do. Vivienne uses her magic for good, just as the surgeon uses her talents to the same end. It is the right thing to do, and no-one with a conscience can turn away simply because their patient is a complete imbecile.

Still, though, Vivienne allows a scowl, because the words were unjustly cruel. “Don’t say such things.”

“My apologies, Lady Vivienne.” She manages to sound sincere, though they both know this is little more than a show; _another point in her favour_ , Vivienne thinks, and nods her approval. “I simply mean…”

“Oh, I know precisely what you mean,” Vivienne says, dismissing the issue and the woman herself with a wave of her hand. “Now, why don’t you run along, my dear? I’m sure you have a veritable mountain of patients requiring your attention. Why don’t you leave this particular problem in my capable hands?”

The surgeon flounders for a moment, then inevitably gives in. “Be my guest,” she murmurs, as though the choice was ever truly hers. “At this point she’s just taking up bed-space, and we’re short enough on that already.”

Vivienne acknowledges her well-placed priorities with a smile. Sera’s bed is scarcely ten paces away, yet she makes a show of turning on her heel, making sure her her back is displayed for a good few moments before she strides back there. It is a display of power, nothing more, and though it is not strictly necessary right now, still old habits die hard. All the more at times like this, when she feels so exposed.

Sera is twitching on her bedroll, clutching spasmodically at the frayed edges of her blanket. “What’d you do that for?”

“Why, whatever do you mean?” Vivienne asks. “It was obvious the poor woman was overworked. And frankly, my dear, even on a good day, you’re a heavy task for an army.”

“Unfair.” No doubt she’s trying to sound affronted, but she’s too weak to give the word any emphasis, and it comes out sounding merely miserable. “Anyway, what’s the point? You’re no frigging surgeon or whatever. And you’re not coming near me with that magic shite, so don’t even bloody think about it.”

Vivienne snorts her derision. “Have no fear, my dear. I suspect my talents would be entirely lost on you on this particular occasion.” She lowers herself to the ground, eases into a sitting position, and crosses her legs gracefully beneath her. Sera watches, mouth half-open, gaping like some common harlot. “So, then, why don’t you tell me what you believe is wrong?”

Sera narrows her eyes; the dark smudges beneath them are so stark, so strong, they look like bruises. The sight is painful, and Vivienne turns away.

“You’re asking me?”

“I am indeed,” she says, and gestures for her to continue.

Sera shakes her head. “You’re messing with me. You’re… you’re playing some kind of game. You…”

She seems perfectly content to ramble on along these lines for as long as Vivienne will allow, but whatever ailment she imagines she’s still suffering takes hold before she has the chance, silencing her far more effectively than even the Inquisitor has ever managed. She groans, the sound coming not from her throat but her chest, and promptly gives up trying to be antagonistic.

“Maker,” she grits out instead, and Vivienne turns back just in time to see her blanching deathly pale. “Should’ve just let the bloody thing kill me when I had the chance. Got to be better than this.”

“Sera…” Vivienne pushes, as gentle as she can be.

“Right, right. Whatever.” She closes her eyes, as though she’s already exhausted before she even begins; her voice is reedy and hoarse, little more than a whisper, and it makes Vivienne think of Bastien again. “Look. I don’t frigging know, do I? I’m not a surgeon, not no more than you are. And I’m not a frigging healer either. I’m just… I’m _nothing_ , yeah? How should I bloody know what’s going on inside me?”

Vivienne sighs, musters some small shred of patience. “Surely you know enough to know what you’re feeling.”

“Like piss. That good enough for you? Feel like frigging _piss_.” She swallows, and Vivienne watches the flutter of her eyelids, as though she’s desperately trying to open her eyes again but lacks the strength. “You heard what that bitch said, didn’t you? Can’t do nothing. Just…” She shudders, a quick gesture, like a spasm; Vivienne winces at the memory of blood and bile on her lips. “Yeah. You heard me, right? Bloody _can’t_. ‘Won’t’, my arse. You think I’d ask for this? You think I want to still be in this shithole, getting weaker and weaker and feeling like piss? You think I want to get turned inside-out every time I try to get something down? You think I want…” Her voice breaks. “You think I want to starve again?”

It’s a pointed word, _again_ , and Vivienne feels the weight of it. “No,” she says softly. “I don’t imagine you do.”

“Right. No-one would. No-one sane, anyway. And I know… I know you idiots don’t think much of me, I know you think I’m crazy sometimes, and maybe I am. Y’know, _sometimes_. But not this time. Not this… not _now_.” She takes a breath, or tries to, but it rattles in her throat. “It’s just… just… nothing feels right. Nothing. And I don’t care what anyone says. I don’t care what reason or whatever there is or isn’t or… or anything. I’m telling you, that shit’s still in me. Okay? It’s still there, and I can’t… I don’t… I just _can’t_.”

Vivienne sighs. “Sera.”

But, of course, Sera doesn’t hear her. She’s tearful, and the damp shine in her eyes is a painful contrast to the dry rasp in her voice. “And… and… and that bitch-balls surgeon doesn’t get it, just thinks I’m… like I’d do this shit on purpose or something, like I’m that frigging messed up.” Her fists clench at her sides, knuckles even whiter than the rest of her. “I’m not. You hear? I’m frigging _not_. And I… I know you don’t believe much about me, Vivvy… and, like, whatever. I don’t believe much about you neither… but even if you don’t believe nothing else, you have to believe me about this. You just have to.”

“I do,” Vivienne says, enunciating very carefully. “I do believe you, Sera.”

Though she’s clearly dehydrated as well as half-starved, still it seems there’s enough moisture left in her for crying, because a few artful tears slide down her face. “Good,” she says, and her voice is trembling with something far more potent than poison. “Because I’m not making this shit up. I wouldn’t. I frigging _couldn’t_. And I don’t want to… I don’t…”

With obvious effort she raises her eyes to meet Vivienne’s, and the raw terror in them is devastating. “Sera.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t want to die like this, Vivvy. I really, _really_ don’t want to die.”

Vivienne sets her jaw, turns every bone in her body to iron. “You will _not_ die, Sera,” she says. “You have my word.”

“Right.” Sera hugs herself again, curling up tight; Vivienne suspects the motion is more to hide her face than out of any actual discomfort, but she doesn’t try to intervene. “Be your fault if I do, won’t it? You and your stupid bloody why-verns.”

The accusation cuts deep, not least of all because it’s accurate. Vivienne does not take kindly to others pointing out her faults, and this time is no exception. Still, she doesn’t sweep to her feet and storm out as she usually would, because she is a woman of her word and she has promised that Sera won’t die like this, that she will not allow that to happen. She doesn’t need to ask what’s wrong, not truly; she has seen it before and she understands, though the impossibility of it still haunts her, but Sera must know that her help does not come free of charge, that she cannot speak to her in such a way. It is one thing not to simply turn around and leave, but she will not allow disrespect to stand unchallenged.

“If you value your health… such as it is… you will watch your tongue.”

Sera flinches, scowls. “Can’t handle the truth?” she mutters, the words muffled. “Whatever, Lady Viv. Denying it’s not gonna change it.”

Vivienne pinches the bridge of her nose, counts to twenty. She reminds herself that Sera is at her most antagonistic when she is feeling most vulnerable, that she pretends to be strongest when she is at her weakest, when she is the most afraid. It is a trick she knows well, one she has used herself on more than a few occasions, and Maker knows she understands Sera’s urge to hide her frailty behind something stronger. Besides, given that she is the superior in this encounter — indeed, in _every_ encounter — then she will be the one to rise above it. After all, these silly little wars of words will not get them closer to a solution.

“I will excuse your rudeness for now.” She makes it clear by her tone that this is a great kindness on her part and that, if Sera knows what’s good for her, she will have the decency to be grateful. “We have more pressing matters to deal with.”

“Bloody right.” She uncurls her body a little, looks up at Vivienne with wounded eyes. It is more difficult than Vivienne would ever admit to hold them, to keep from turning away. “Make it stop, yeah? Just… just make it frigging stop. Poison or wyvern shite or whatever. Don’t even care what it is any more, just get it out of me. Get rid of it, get it out. Just…” Her breath hitches, and Vivienne’s almost does the same. “Just _take it away_.”

The words strike Vivienne with the force of a blow, and the potency stings like salt in an open wound. She reels, almost physically, and it is only her legendary self-control that keeps her from letting Sera see it. It has been days since her last meeting with the demon, and yet she hears those same words again now, in his voice, as though it were only a moment ago.

_Take it away._

She remembers his face, too, partly hidden in the shadows, eyes ethereal and entirely too bright as he peers up at her from beneath the brim of his ridiculous hat. Cole, cursed creature that he is, forcing himself into her space despite her best efforts to shoo him away, insisting again and again that she must help Sera, that Sera can help her in return, that they might somehow be able to help each other. Ludicrous, of course, but didn’t he use precisely those words?

 _Take it away,_ he said, and she remembers it so clearly, even now, because it gave her a perfect opening to banish him. _Yes, please do that._ It was so simple, then, so very simple, and yet all of a sudden it feels far too complicated.

“Say that again,” she hears herself say.

Sera blinks, startled by the urgency in her voice, the barely-concealed tremor. Her eyes are weary, face drawn and pale, but she musters a shrug, as though sensing that for once she holds the power here. Not that she has the wit to do anything with it, of course, but it seems to give her a sort of second wind, just enough strength to prop herself up on her elbows and frown up at her.

“Said ‘take it away’,” she says, a petulant whine almost like a child’s. “That so difficult to get through your head?”

“Not at all,” Vivienne muses, though she is speaking far more to herself than to Sera. “Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

“What? Again?”

Sera tries to sit up more fully. She fails spectacularly, of course, and loses her balance after a moment or two, collapsing back onto the bedroll with a pitiful little cry. The sight is a tragic one, truly, but Vivienne has other things on her mind at the moment, and she cannot bring herself to offer even a feigned feint at sympathy.

“Yes,” she says simply. “Again.”

“Are you serious? You just… you get me to spill my guts to you, go on and on about how you believe me and all that shite, and then you’re just gonna piss off? Just like that? Again?” She balls her fists, but they’re as weak and worthless as the rest of her. “I should’ve known, yeah? Should’ve bloody known. Never trust a frigging noble. Never trust a bloody _bitch_.”

Vivienne sighs, does not bother to correct the countless presumptions in that fleeting diatribe. “That’s right, Sera, dear,” she says instead. “By all means, waste what little energy you have left in screaming and shouting and calling me names. I’m sure that will help immensely.”

“Well, what else am I supposed to do, bitch-balls? Just lie here and… and wait to die?” She’s shaking, and there is more violence in the shudders than there is in the rest of her combined, so Vivienne lays a hand on her arm, steadying her as best she can; it’s not compassion, she tells herself, simply that she is the one who caused her distress, and thus it falls to her to try and ease it. “You frigging… you… just…” She cries out, angry and frightened. “Why now? Could’ve left before, couldn’t you? Could’ve pissed off before you got me to… before I…” She spits a curse. “Why you leaving _now_?”

“Because I have things to do,” Vivienne says, quite simply. It is, after all, the truth. “But don’t fret, darling. I promise I shall return soon enough.” She forces a smile, keeps it cruel and cutting, though in truth that’s the last thing in the world she’s feeling. “How could I not, after all, when you provide such delightful company?”

Sera musters another mouthful of curses, hissed and choked out through clenched teeth. Like the rest of her, the sounds are pathetically thin, worthless little half-words that wouldn’t even make a Chantry sister blush. Sad, honestly, and Vivienne almost pities them.

“If we’re quite done…” she says, releasing Sera’s arm.

“You frigging tell me,” Sera mumbles. “I can’t go anywhere, can I? Bloody frigging pissing bastard wyvern…”

“Quite right, dear. Let’s not forget where the blame truly lies.” The words stick unpleasantly in her throat, and Vivienne turns her face away as she climbs to her feet. “Do try to get some rest while I’m gone, all right? I shall return shortly, and I expect you to be at your best when I do. You know I can’t abide poor manners.”

“Bitch,” Sera hisses at her back.

Vivienne smiles to herself, because she has to, because even though Sera certainly can’t see it from this angle, still she herself knows what it looks like. Still she wears the expression like a shield, like a mask, the kind that have kept her safe from prying and pitying eyes for as long as she can remember. She smiles because she has to, for her own sake, never for anyone else’s, and when she sweeps away, it is with an Orlesian flourish, shoulders back, head held high, and under no circumstances does she let anyone see how much it hurts to keep her spine straight.

 _Bastien taught you well,_ she thinks, and refuses to let herself cry.

*

“Demon!”

He appears immediately, as she knew he would, stepping out from behind her couch as though he’s been hiding there the whole time.

She knows that he hasn’t, of course; in the first she would have noticed, and in the second he surely values his life rather more highly than the element of surprise. He can read her mind, and he must know that she would skin him in a heartbeat if she caught him in her territory again, and yet here he is. Still, though she can’t help but wonder, she decides it is safer for her sanity not to ask why he couldn’t simply use the door like normal people.

“You told me to stay away,” he says, and launches into one of his usual indecipherable monologues before she has a chance to try to stop him. “You wonder, worry, wear yourself worn, work yourself weary. Waiting, weighted. You wish you could want, want to wish, but you’re wilful, wanton. You won’t waver, even when you want to.” He frowns, studies her with those horrible demon’s eyes. “Why?”

Of course she doesn’t bother to answer; even if she had the faintest idea what he was talking about, she would never dignify his endless rambling with a response. Instead, she simply says, “Maker, preserve us,” and commands him to stop this nonsense immediately or be banished.

He sits down. Right there in the middle of the floor, as though it isn’t the most unimaginable rudeness to make her private chambers look so untidy. She opens her mouth to chasten him, to demand that he show proper manners, but once again he cuts in before she can get the words out.

“You went there,” he says, and she loathes that he knows already, that he knows everything. “You saw her, saw yourself. She struggled, you suffered. The sight strains, sears, surges. It moves you, memories made maudlin, mourning made manifest.” His head is bowed so low that she can only see the very top of his hat; that too is unspeakably impolite, but for now she lets it slide. “I told you. _Help_. She can help you, but only if you help her. _Help_. I told you. I told you, but you didn’t hear.”

“I heard.” She will not be accused of ignorance. “I simply chose not to listen.”

“But you do now.” It’s so matter-of-fact, the way he says it, that she has to fight to keep from screaming in sheer frustration. “You listen now. You look and you learn. You _see_. See, like she saw, like she slips in the shadows, searching, stealthy, scrabbling at scribbled secrets. She saw you, saw him, saw everything. And now you see her too. Scared, small, struggling. Starving, yes, starving but sick. Senses screaming, spasms in the stomach, sour, spoiled, twisted, tainted, tightness in the throat turned to twitching, tension, a terrible taste on the tongue, then—”

“That’s quite enough, thank you.” Her voice is sharper than she intends, but she does not apologise. “This is a civilised home, darling. We don’t need the gory details.”

He nods; Vivienne supposes it’s as close to an apology as he’s capable of. “You know,” he says, shoulders hunching. “You know. You’ve seen it before.”

“Indeed I have.” There’s no sense in denying it, really; the demon has made it quite clear that he sees everything, whether she wants him to or not. “She is… there are similarities, it is true.” It feels strange to open up to him, monster that he is, and yet not really so strange at all; surely there is no harm in voicing these things aloud when he knows every thought in her head already. “Bastien would go through episodes like this. His illness was long and terrible, but the potion kept it at bay. At least, it did until now…”

She trails off, just for a moment, but that is enough. “He was ready,” Cole says, and she almost believes him.

“The potion,” she says again, more for her own benefit, to steady herself, than for his. “It could banish the worst of it, make him well again. It saved his life more times than I can count. And yet, every time, he would insist for days afterwards that the illness lingered, that the symptoms remained. There was nothing wrong with him, nothing the nurses or surgeons could detect, but still he would insist…”

Cole sighs, or makes a sound to approximate one. “ _No, darling, no. It’s over now. You’re fine, you’re healthy. The elixir did its job. You’re well again, just like the recipes said. I’d never let you down, my darling, my dearest, my Bastien. I promise, I promise, I promise…_ ” He trails off, breath catching, as though he could possibly comprehend the pain he’s putting her through. “He wanted to believe you. His body told him lies, twisted the truth, turned it into something else. So sure, so certain. _It has to be true, it has to be; she wouldn’t steer me wrong, not her, never her. It has to be true, but it can’t be. Too much pain, too much hurt, everything on fire, flames like hers, magic like that night at the ball, the way she stole my heart… burning, blazing, beautiful—_ ”

“Stop,” she says, dangerously close to a plea.

He nods, tries again. “He hurt so badly, so he couldn’t believe you. Had to be falsehood, fallacy. Fever flaring, flushing, fading, faith faltering, he felt it all. His body wouldn’t let him believe he was well. But he saw your eyes, your heart, and he wanted to.”

“I know he did.” The words come against her will, choked by all the tears she will never let fall. “Perhaps it was a side-effect of the potion. I don’t know. Perhaps…”

“Yes.” He raises his head, eyes wide and unsettling; the intensity is almost frightening. “I made you forget. I made you forget so that you wouldn’t be sad when it didn’t work. It wasn’t her fault, but you would have blamed her. Your hurt would turn to hate. Horrible, hurting, haunting…”

Vivienne spots something ominous beneath the seemingly harmless babble, something her senses tell her she might not want to know. “What are you saying, demon?”

“The sun was so bright. Breathtaking, beautiful, blinding. So bright, and you knew that it wouldn’t work, knew that it wouldn’t survive. You knew, you knew, you knew, but you had no choice. She was going to die.”

 _No,_ Vivienne thinks, suddenly desperate. The tale is only half-told, and yet she hears the whole of it as though the pages are right there in front of her. _No. It cannot be true. The demon lies. It is what they do._

“You lie, demon.” Spoken aloud, it grounds her, helps her to remember the truth.

“No.” He shakes his head, emphatic and almost violent. “ _One drop, just one drop. I can spare that much, surely. But, oh, the light! What of the light? It’ll be the death of him. It’ll waste away, wither, a delay will decay, and it will be worthless. It’ll be the end of him, my dearest, my darling, and for what? She’s nothing, less than nothing. She’s nobody, and nobody would mourn her. Let the healers do her best, let that be enough. Maker, let it be enough…_ ” For a fraction of a second, Vivienne imagines she sees tears in his eyes. But that is not possible, is it? He is a demon, after all. Perhaps, then, it is simply a reflection of someone else’s. “But it wasn’t enough. You knew it wouldn’t be. You didn’t want to admit, didn’t want to accept, but you knew. _The most dangerous of any wyvern. She’ll be dead in days. It’ll be long and painful and torturous, agony on agony on agony, and all for my sake, all for me, all so that my Bastien might live. Stupid child! Why?_ ”

“Indeed.” Vivienne bows her head. “Why?”

“Because she knew you loved him.” There is a deep sorrow to his voice, as though he truly is sharing her pain, as though he has any idea what true pain is. “ _Bloody bitch. Doesn’t love no-one, her. Gotta be worth it, then. Gotta be, if he’s good enough for the likes of her. Gotta be._ ” When she raises her head to look at him again, he’s smiling. “She did it for you. For you, and for him. Maybe for her, too. She just wanted to help. She thought it would fix what was broken. In him, in you, in her. She wanted to be whole, wanted to win, wanted to be warm and well. Wanted, wondered, wished. Waited. Weighted, like you were, like you still are. Wanted to be wanted, to be worthy, but all she heard was _worthless_.”

It has been some time since she allowed the guilt to strike, but it strikes without warning now, as potent and powerful as ever. Raw and visceral, it lands like a blow, and Vivienne doesn’t even bother trying to hide it from the demon. Let him see, if he will; he has clearly seen everything else.

It makes her angry all over again, the way he pokes and pries, the way he knows every detail, every moment, every breath, the way he sees every part of her as though she is the one who left herself on display, as though she is the weak one. It is not so, _cannot_ be so, and yet the feeling is inescapable. Vivienne has always prided herself on her restraint, on allowing only what she wants to be seen, but Cole ignores every one of her self-imposed rules, glides through her barriers as though they were made of water. It is impolite, even rude, and the anger flares as hot as magical flame.

And yet, even as it climbs, it sputters out. And yet, even as she hates him for it, still she finds that it is almost a relief to not have to pretend.

“Perhaps…” The word tastes strange, a half-confession weighted down by too much feeling and the unfamiliarity of not having to conceal it. “Perhaps I misjudged her.”

“No.” He says it with such conviction, such certainty, that she can almost believe it herself. “No. You believe. You’ve always believed. _‘Bitch’_ belies the brutality, bruises, abrasions, blood boiling, bones broken, bitterness buried and bound. She howls when you heal her. _No magic, please, no magic._ Screams, sobs, hates that she can’t stop, can’t silence, can’t suppress, and you think you should laugh at her, but you never do. You smile and smooth back her hair and say _It’ll be over soon, my dear,_ or _Hush, it’s almost done_. Judgement, jousting. You joust, but you never judge.”

Vivienne quirks a brow, impressed in spite of herself. “You see all that, do you?”

“Yes.”

She sighs, but she cannot bring herself to inject her usual disdain into the sound. “Well, then, aren’t we a perceptive little abomination? Perhaps I should demand that the Inquisitor refrain from bringing you along the next time we venture out together, if you can see so much when you should be focused elsewhere.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, and the apology surprises her. “I want to help. Like she did. She wanted to help, to heal you like you healed her. She wanted to help but she only hurt, made it hard, hateful. I’m sorry if I do that too.”

Vivienne desperately wants to tell him that he does, that he is far worse at causing her pain than deluded little Sera could ever dream of being. Sera tries too hard, too often; she works at it, strives, and as a result it seldom has any effect. It is hard to be intimidated by someone who is constantly shouting about how intimidating they are, and it is seldom any task at all for Vivienne to shut out her shrill little voice. Sera doesn’t hurt her, at least not in the way she intends, but this demon need only whisper her name, and Vivienne is cut to the quick.

Cole is a mystery. He is a demon, and his very presence is an affront to everything she holds dear. He shrouds himself in kindness, in compassion, in claiming to help, and that makes it easier for him to get beneath her skin, to find the cracks in her armour and break them open. He does not intend it, if his words are to be believed. He does not try to wound her at all, and so of course he succeeds. In so many ways, he is precisely the opposite of sweet simple Sera, with her heart on her sleeve and her broken little curses screamed to the heavens.

She doesn’t say that, though. It has been days since they last stood here like this, since he last graced her with his presence, wanted or otherwise. She told him to leave, and he did, and she can only assume that the Inquisitor spoke to him as promised, because he has not ventured back here until now, until she herself explicitly summoned him. In that, at least, he truly has shown compassion, though it does not stop her from hating him. The problem, of course, is that this conversation, this moment where he has finally done as she asked, has caused more pain in itself than all his invasions and intrusions combined.

“Don’t apologise,” she says, and can scarcely believe she’s saying it. “Simply… help me. That is what you wish, is it not?”

He nods, as enthusiastic as a puppy. “Yes.”

“Then do so. You told me to help her, to help us both. You told me to hear you, to listen, and I am. You have my attention; use it well, and tell me what to do.”

He is smiling again when he meets her eyes, but this time there is no sorrow in him at all. He seems almost at peace, if a demon is capable of that, as though she has asked the very question he’s been waiting for, as though he’s been counting down the seconds until this moment. It unnerves her, simply by virtue of who he is, what he represents, and yet a part of it inspires the same feeling in her as well. Relief that for once she doesn’t need to command, doesn’t need to put on airs and graces, doesn’t need to become Madame de Fer. Relief that for once, if only for a moment or two, she is allowed to look at someone else and _ask_.

“I don’t need to tell you,” he says, and somehow that is all the answer she needs. “You already know.”

*


	4. Chapter 4

*

For a time, she simply walks the battlements, thinking.

It is a bad habit, thinking, but at this point it’s markedly better than the alternative. The demon seems content for now to leave her alone, but she wouldn’t put it past him to show up just to prove her wrong; all it would take is a single emotional mis-step, and she is his for the taking. So, no. Thinking, not feeling. Simple, straightforward thinking. Easy to control, easier to focus.

She thinks of Sera, of course. The silly girl fills her head like an unwanted guest, visions flashing before her eyes of pale skin, bloody lips, bruise-dark circles under her eyes. _Stubbornness,_ the surgeon called it, the way she’s letting herself grow weaker, but Cole thinks otherwise, and Vivienne’s aching heart can’t help but agree, especially if she is to believe the things he told her.

 _I made you forget_. That is what he said, but he didn’t have the decency to make her remember. That is no matter, really; for once, his words painted a clear enough picture. A drop or two of Bastien’s precious potion, wasted on a wasteful elf. She still can’t make sense of it, and it angers her to think of the demon tampering with her thoughts, taking away memories that were hers by right. Another complaint for the Inquisitor, she supposes, when her duties allow.

She thinks of Bastien as well. He is never far from her thoughts even at the best of times, but with the elixir in her mind he seems closer even than usual. She thinks of his long illness, of weeks absent from court followed by a miraculous return just in time to salvage his social standing. ‘Miraculous’, of course, only in the sense that all alchemy is miraculous; this was far from the first snowy wyvern to fall for Bastien’s sake, though apparently it will be the last. A shame, albeit fitting, that the last one would also cause the most trouble.

She tries very hard not to think of the demon himself, but of course he is in everything now, worming his way into her thoughts like a parasite. As a compromise, she allows herself to think about his words but not his face, not his voice or those empty ethereal eyes. She allows herself to indulge his cryptic mumblings, the things he claims to see in her, in Sera, in the two of them together.

It is troubling, scarcely short of embarrassing, and yet she cannot deny that there is a grain of truth in some of what he says. It is true enough, for example, that she doesn’t laugh at Sera when she cowers and cringes from silly things, that she does not mistreat her when she flinches from magic, even her own healing spells. It is true enough that she is not nearly so harsh as she could be, or indeed should be, in the face of her childishness. It is all worryingly true.

The whole situation is, quite frankly, a mess. The next time she needs a favour from the Inquisitor, she will specify that he is not, under any circumstances, to bring Sera.

Next time, of course, does not help with this time, with the problems still hovering over her. If the demon is to be believed — if it is true that she allowed a little of the elixir to be taken — then the similarities between Sera’s sickening and Bastien’s are not coincidental at all.

Interesting, she thinks, the subtle ways that history repeats itself. It was always so frustrating to sit with Bastien during those days, to soothe his pain and insist that he eat, to comfort him when his body rebelled for no good reason, to reassure him that he was well, the the elixir worked, that he would be dead if it hadn’t. Frustrating to try and make him see sense, make him see through his stubbornness. Frustrating, yes, but at least the danger was past, and that made it simple. Vivienne is always at her best when she knows the outcome, knows what the future holds, and that was doubly true with Bastien; in those days, when she knew beyond all doubt that he would survive, that he already had survived, it was easier than ever to smile into his blind eyes and say, _“All is well, my darling_.”

She will, of course, do no such thing for Sera. Even if both their lives depended on it, that is a bridge too far.

What she will do, however, is the best she can. It is more than a question of guilt now, more than the simple fact that she suddenly finds herself responsible in two separate ways. That doesn’t matter; regardless of the source, the damned potion or the damned wyvern, Vivienne is the only one who has dealt with this situation before. She is the only one who has sat and watched someone she cares about suffer like this, the only one who has sat and watched his body shake with spasms from no apparent source, the only one who has wiped sweat from his brow all the while knowing that he shouldn’t be sweating at all. It is just as the blighted demon said: Vivienne has seen this before, and she alone knows how to deal with it.

In any case, the sooner she and Sera can both put this behind them, the better.

*

She descends on the kitchen like a bird of prey.

The servants scatter, falling over themselves to get out of her way, though of course the cook is not quite so easily intimidated. She holds her ground admirably, as Vivienne would expect, standing toe-to-toe with her as though she has earned the right to do so. She is not Orlesian, and perhaps she doesn’t truly grasp the weight of Vivienne’s status, but even if she did this is clearly not a question of status; the kitchen is her territory, and she would fight anyone who dares try to claim it for themselves.

Vivienne, of course, is well accustomed to such posturing, and she doesn’t so much as blink when the self-righteous woman demands to know what she’s doing there, what gives her the right to intrude on official kitchen business. She stops herself short of actually saying _‘Who do you think you are?’_ , and that is the only reason why she does not find herself frozen in a block of ice. One point given for self-control, a dozen taken away for the gall. Culinary talent, it seems, is not this woman’s only shortcoming.

When it is her turn to speak, Vivienne only says, “Leave.”

It is a command, of course; her status in the Imperial Court may not impress this woman, but her status within the Inquisition certainly should. She is a member of the Inquisitor’s hand-picked inner circle, the select few who stand not simply behind him but at his side, who share his duties and command just as much respect as he does. Even if the cook is too ignorant to grasp the weight her name carries in Orlais, she certainly knows the weight it carries in the Inquisition itself.

“If there’s something I can assist you with, Madame—”

Vivienne does not give her the chance to say _‘de Fer’_. “You can assist by leaving,” she says. “I have business to attend in here, and it does not require an audience. Least of all one who can’t even prepare a lamb cutlet without falling into a spiral of self-destructive spicing.” She quirks a brow, cool and calculating; the insult is a riposte against the lack of respect, and she makes sure the cook knows it. “For shame, my dear.”

That takes the wind out of her sails quickly enough. Good. She couldn’t argue the point even if she wanted to, but the look on her face says that she doesn’t have the courage to try anyway. Besides, she’s probably not accustomed to being dressed down in person; Vivienne is not the only one in Skyhold who takes issue with the quality of the food, but few others are bold enough to speak up on their own behalf. She is a rare flower in that respect; too many in the Inquisition are content to simply coast quietly by without stirring the waters, claiming ‘more important things to worry about’, but not her.

The cook has clearly never encountered such forthright hostility before, because she stands there with her, mouth hanging open like a dying fish, fumbling for something to say in retaliation. A pointless exercise, really, because in the time it takes her to summon the words, Vivienne has already shouldered her towards the door, silencing her without the least effort.

“That’s much better, darling. Silence is such a precious commodity these days…” She smiles, without a trace of sincerity. “Now, then. Off you go. Try not to let the door hit you on the way out; it would be such a chore to have to replace it.”

The cook squeaks in protest, which is more coherence than she’s managed thus far, but it is naturally wasted on Vivienne. She is, after all, a practiced professional in the art of getting what she wants, and she has already shooed the silly woman out into the corridor before she even realises she’s being corralled in the first place. Easily done, and with none of the foot-tapping that comes with waiting for a fool to take their own initiative.

Left alone at last, she considers her options.

Bastien, like Sera, would always struggle with eating in the days following a bout of illness. Just like she is, he would often find himself halfway emaciated from so long without any sustenance at all, starving but paranoid about his condition, and too nauseous in any case to keep anything down. It was a constant source of concern for Vivienne that all of her hard work with the elixir might yet go to waste simply because he refused to replenish himself once the illness itself was in remission. The situation is painfully similar with Sera now, and Vivienne can certainly understand the poor surgeon’s frustration; loathe as she is to admit it with the benefit of hindsight, there were occasions where she too would accuse Bastien of ‘stubbornness’.

His declining years brought her a world of experience, though, and a wealth of patience too. She knows better now, knows how to deal with this particular breed of suffering, and though it may be too late to bestow that wisdom on the one who deserves it, still perhaps it can do some good for someone else. Sera may not really have earned it, but surely it is better to see a gift put to good use than left to gather dust. Vivienne has lost too much of her darling Bastien already; the least she can do is keep hold of the things he taught her.

So, then, a simple broth. Something weak and thin, easy to swallow and gentle on the stomach. No doubt the idiot surgeon has been plying the poor girl with rations and supplements and other such nonsense, full to the brim with nourishment but almost impossible to digest even when healthy; a charming idea, perhaps, for someone with Cassandra’s constitution or the Iron Bull’s steel stomach, but nothing short of stupid when forced on someone who can barely choke down a cup of water. No, no, no; it simply won’t do. Sera needs something light, something that even she couldn’t possibly fight. Simplicity is a blessing at times like this; Vivienne knows the struggle all too well.

She works quietly, with the same precision and diligence that she puts into her spells, her speeches to the Court, her counsel to the Inquisitor; no doubt it would surprise a great many to learn that Madame de Fer is as skilled in the kitchen as in places more suited to her position, but it should not. That she stands shoulder-to-shoulder with seasoned soldiers, with weathered warriors and shadowy spies, that she fights with the Inquisition on its front lines should be evidence enough that she is willing to get her hands dirty when the moment requires it, and yet it remains a sad staple of the human condition to assume the worst of people who present a particular appearance. Even with all the evidence in the world to the contrary, still people will look at her and see only the cut of her gown.

That matters little, of course. She did not come down here to prove a point, or to win approval; if she had, she wouldn’t be doing this alone. There are countless others she could have talked into bearing witness to this moment of generosity, and if she’d wanted word to spread she need only place the right servant in the right place at the right time, and everyone would know. That is not what this is about, and it never was; as on the battlefield or the Imperial Court or anywhere else she chooses to take up arms, she has a job to do here, and she simply wishes to see it done to the best of her ability.

It helps, too, that the work itself proves oddly therapeutic. She did this for Bastien, after all, and it brings a sad smile to her face to do it again now, to remember the look on his face as he forced himself to swallow for her sake so much more than his own, so that her hard work might not be wasted. She is not so nostalgic nor so foolish as to delude herself as some might that he is ‘here with her’; she knows that is not possible, yet still his presence hangs like a shroud over her thoughts, and she knows that he would approve of this.

This is not like her, the uncharacteristic kindness and the softness in her touch, the fond smile as she stirs the broth and thinks of him, measures out the salt and imagines him shaking his head. It is not like her at all, but it is precisely like _him_ to bring out this side of her. Bastien always cared more about the little people than she did, the feckless fools who had nothing and deserved less. He adored little acts of charity, little moments of kindness that would never be traced back to him; his generosity, his _compassion_ outstripped that of anyone Vivienne had ever met, and anyone she has known since.

The sad irony is, Sera would probably have loved him.

Simple as it is, the broth does not take very long to complete. She borrows a bowl from one of the cupboards, and amuses herself by writing a suitably heartfelt ‘thank you’ note to the cook; it is delightful, imagining the foolish woman’s reaction, and she wishes she could arrange to be here when she finds it. Sadly, though, she has far more pressing matters to deal with, and with her task now complete, there is no reason for her to remain.

Thus, the easy part is done. The hard part, she suspects, will be convincing Sera that her cooking is safe to eat.

*

Sera, lying on her bedroll, is looking even more sorry for herself than she was earlier.

Vivienne is careful not to let any sympathy show through on her face, not simply for the sake of her reputation, but for her safety as well. Sera is not best pleased with her just now, and even in her current pitiful state it would hardly be beyond her means to throw a jaw of bees or some other unspeakable thing in her face simply for daring to look at her. Besides, she has no intention of seeing her uncharacteristic act of kindness sullied by yet another foolish misunderstanding. There have been far too many of those already, and it must end.

“Back again, Lady Vivvy?” The poor thing sounds utterly exhausted; as hard as she tries, she can’t even muster a hint of her usual snark. Vivienne sighs, but allows her the effort. “Here for another game of _‘hey, you’re still alive, okay, see you later’_?”

“Not at all,” Vivienne says. “And, to be perfectly blunt, my dear, it is rather unfair of you to say so. I’m not cruel, as much as you like to believe I am, and I’m certainly not heartless. I simply have other matters that require my attention, as do we all. We can’t all afford to laze about in bed for days on end…”

Sera growls low in her throat; it sounds like a rusted blade against a rusted chain, rasping and painful. “Bitch.”

There is no fight left in her, though, and she sounds as sad and small as Vivienne has always imagined she was her. Silly little Sera, with her childish pranks and her puerile humour; Vivienne is constantly wondering how the Inquisitor could possibly take her seriously. Her attitude alone is offensive enough, the way she speaks to anyone who does not fit in with her narrow-minded world-view, the way she refuses to listen to even the most water-tight logic, and her behaviour is even worse, the endless pranks and constant foul language, the way she puts herself and others in danger just to show off. It is intolerable, truly, but coupled with her lack of grace, her shameful posture, her ear-splitting accent… well, the list is endless. Vivienne has always assumed that this would be a black-and-white affair: let the silly girl run about embarrassing herself for a while, then send her on her way when the novelty wears off. And yet, somehow, it never happened.

It is only now, for the first time, that Vivienne is starting to understand why. Of everyone in the Inquisition, Sera is the one least likely to throw herself in harm’s way, the one least likely to commit an act of self-sacrifice. Of everyone, she is the one Vivienne would have placed wagers on letting the wyvern escape, on choosing her own survival over completing a mission or doing a good deed. Sera, who owed Vivienne nothing and believed that she owed her even less than that… that she, of all people, would choose the selfless option, the painful one, that she would complete the mission without stopping to think that it might kill her? Not so long ago, Vivienne wouldn’t have been able to imagine such a thing. Even now, she cannot fathom ever being foolish enough to do the same in return.

 _I misjudged her._ Her own words, to the demon, and yet she remembers all too well the way he responded, the less-than-subtle reminder that there has always been more between them than the animosity everyone else sees. Thinking of it brings out the softer side of her, the side that she takes great pains to hide from others, and from Sera especially. It brings up memories of wounds on the field of battle, of her fingers trailing through uneven hair, of tenderness where there should only be cruelty, of placations and promises. _Hush, my dear. It’s almost done now._ Just as the demon said. Long before now, before she ever had a reason… still, in the right moment, it seems that Sera has always brought this out in her.

She trails her fingers through her hair again now — her left hand this time, the one not cradling the broth-bowl — and whispers those same placations, hollow and futile and wishing now, as always, that they could be cruel instead. “Hush, my dear. Hush.”

Despite herself, Sera leans into the contact. Vivienne is struck by how frail she is, hair thin and skin pallid; it is like touching a skeleton centuries dead, as though even the slightest movement might cause her to dissolve to dust. The alien apology sparks on the tip of her tongue — _I’m sorry you had to go through this for me_ — but she forces it back down, refuses to let it surface. A part of her wants to, the same part that summoned Cole, that took a strange kind of comfort from knowing that he knows her, but that part has always been so much smaller than the part of her that needs to win, that needs to be powerful. She cannot show weakness here, cannot let Sera see the guilt, the softer sentiments, the compassion that tears like wolves at her heart every time she ventures down here, every time she sees her like this, every time she thinks of her wasting away for a worthless potion.

Perhaps Sera senses her discomfort, or at least senses that she’s fighting some inner turmoil, because she flinches against her, shattering the moment before it can grow too large.

“Hate this,” she grumbles, and Vivienne finds that she is almost grateful for the sound of her voice. “Feeling like this. _Being_ like this. All weak and sick and stupid, and just… frigging…”

She cuts herself off, as though it pains her to show Vivienne this side of her, as though they are as ashamed as each other, and of the very same things.

“I know,” Vivienne says.

Sera shakes her head, as though refusing to believe her. “Frigging hate it.”

Vivienne sighs. The sound is too soft, too gentle, and her fingers as too tender against Sera’s temples. Too much compassion, too much emotion, and she cannot allow that. Neither of them can. She clears her throat to harden it, changes the subject, and hopes that Sera didn’t notice.

“I brought you some broth.”

The distraction is a good one, though Sera’s reaction is hardly ideal. Instead of thanking her, she simply shudders, a pathetic little twitch that uses rather more strength than she actually possesses.

“Can’t eat,” she says. “Can’t do nothing. Already told you that.”

Vivienne musters a thin smile, puts her disgust on full display. “Indeed, you did,” she says. “Repeatedly, and in great detail.”

The posturing is for her own benefit, of course, with little thought for Sera’s comfort; it surprises her, though perhaps it shouldn’t, that the silly girl seems to draw more strength from the coolness than she did from the compassion. They are not so different as either of them would like to think, it seems, and Vivienne swiftly banishes the memory of Cole’s demonic eyes and the way they sparkled when he spoke about them helping each other.

“So that’s it, then,” Sera grumbles. “Don’t waste your breath, yeah?”

“If only it were that simple,” Vivienne sighs. “But I’m afraid I have a promise to keep, and I can’t in good conscience allow you to waste away for the want of proper sustenance.” She takes a breath, softens just slightly. “Believe it or not, darling, I do understand how hideous you’re feeling. Why, my dearest Bastien…”

Sera groans, loud and disrespectful; it is wholly characteristic of the little monster, but somehow Vivienne finds that she does not mind. “Andraste,” she whines, “not _him_ again.”

“Yes, _him_ again.” Despite herself, she almost catches herself smiling. “Believe me, he’s not nearly as Orlesian as you like to believe.” She helps Sera to sit up a little, eases her as close to upright as she can get, and doesn’t chasten her when she flops against her like a corpse, like a discarded doll with its stuffing ripped out. “There we go. Much tidier, yes?”

“Bitch,” Sera says, rather unhelpfully.

“Quite so.” She taps Sera’s cheek with one finger, and raises the broth-bowl. “Now, then. Let’s see if we can’t manage a mouthful or two, hm? And in the meantime, if you promise to behave, I’ll tell you stories about Duke Bastien that would make your toes curl.”

Sera musters a laugh. It’s weak, weaker even than the broth, but it warms a part of Vivienne that she always assumed would be cold forever. Sera, so immature, so juvenile, whose laughter often cuts right through Vivienne like a biting wind; like the rest of her, the sound offends her to her very core, at least most of the time. And yet now, weak and pitiful as it is, it feels like sunshine on her skin, like a kind of old freedom she never thought she’d know again.

“No bloody chance,” Sera says, and though her eyes are cloudy and exhausted, for a moment or two they seem to shine.

Vivienne chuckles, a lighter laugh and still somehow stronger than Sera’s. She pulls her in a little closer, helps her to stay steady, and doesn’t even care that her fingers do not dig in as deeply as perhaps they should, that her tongue does not snap so sharply as she intends when she clicks it against the roof of her mouth.

“Oh?” It’s a challenge, of course; what else would get a reaction here? “You don’t think I could make you blush?”

“I think you could try,” Sera quips back. Her voice is rough, or tries to be, but she is smiling too. “And frigging fail.”

She is not so foolish as others believe, Vivienne can tell, and she knows exactly what’s going on here. She recognises the attempt to distract her, sees the goading for what it is, and she is grateful for it. Grateful, in the same way that Vivienne herself is grateful for everything she’s done, for risking her life to slay a rare beast on her behalf. Grateful and a little resentful at the same time, because _why her, why this one, why that bitch?_. The resentment turns the gratitude bitter, makes it stick in their throats, but the two feelings are utterly inseparable.

They are as futile as each other, she and Sera, at least in the way they feel such things, the way they resent even a shared moment of understanding and resent themselves all the more for being weak enough to indulge it. Resentful and bitter, yes, but gratitude is gratitude, and it is the intentions that count more than anything. Odd, even impossible, as it may seem, hers and Sera’s are equally pure. Perhaps they always have been.

“Very well,” Vivienne says, letting her teeth snap with all the bitterness and none of the gratitude, communicating with Sera in the only way that fits them both. “Let us see who has the right of it.”

The distraction is more than simply a pleasantry; if Sera is to nourish herself here, even just a little, it is a necessity. It is the only thing that worked on Bastien in days like this, the only thing Vivienne could do to ensure that he ate or drank or got enough sleep. She had to keep his mind separate from his body long enough for him to do what was needed, whether that was to put his head down and close his eyes, swallow some soup or water, breathe without coughing, move without imagining pain. There was never a shortage of things he needed, but only ever one way to see them done.

It was far from ideal, of course, just as it is far from ideal here. But when has that ever stopped her from doing what must be done? One does not become Enchanter to the Imperial Court through idealism.

Besides, after what Sera did, she has a right to know exactly what kind of a man Bastien was. One does not risk one’s life for a stranger and then walk away without ever stopping to wonder if he might be worth it. Given her disregard for nobles, and for Vivienne personally, she must have thought about it a thousand times. What kind of ‘rich tit’ was she suffering for? Was he worth it? _Probably not, if Lady Vivvy thinks he’s so great_. An understandable conclusion, given their history, though hardly a fair one, and Vivienne welcomes the opportunity to make her realise that the world is not quite so narrow as her view of it.

Sera is surprisingly responsive, once she starts to speak. She leaves the broth untouched for a time, letting herself get lost in Vivienne’s words before she trusts herself to try it; Vivienne allows her the evasion, because Bastien was always like this too. And it is so easy, isn’t it, to get lost in those old familiar stories, in the way Vivienne glows to speak of Bastien’s kindness and generosity, his good deeds, everyh he did against her better advice. So easy to get lost in a man as marvellous as that, and Vivienne is as lost to her memories as Sera is to the words she weaves from them.

In truth, Bastien bore very little resemblance to the nobles that Sera talks about with such hate in her voice, and Vivienne paints a convincing picture of someone above the rules of the Game, someone who used them not only to his own advantage, but for the benefit of others as well. Others, like Sera’s precious ‘little people’, for example; Bastien’s attentions did not extend only to attractive Circle mages, and it is difficult not to let the triumph show on her face when Sera lets her jaw drop open, mutters “no frigging way” and shakes her head.

It may not be the absolute truth, but it is close enough, and the victory is a satisfying one. A little exaggeration here, a little fabrication there, but isn’t that the way these things always work? One remembers the best of lost loved ones, and paint even the worst in brighter hues so that they might shine just as brightly. This is the way it has always been, the way it will always be, and Vivienne embraces that tradition eagerly. It is comforting to keep close to reality, close enough that she herself recognises the shining gems of truth, but it is amusing, too, to exaggerate just the right moments in just the right way and watch Sera’s face turn a dozen different colours.

It is perhaps an hour before Sera dares to test the broth, test her body’s limits. It should feel like an unacceptable waste of time, and yet Vivienne finds that it has flown by. The broth is all but cold, of course, and will no doubt have lost a good deal of its flavour, yet still it feels almost as though they have just begun. Bastien has always had that effect on her, but it’s nice to see that he has the same effect on stubborn little Sera as well.

She chokes on the first mouthful, but Vivienne is firm. One hand on her back, as strong and steadying as it ever was on Bastien’s, and the other painfully gentle as she cups her jaw, holds her in place.

“No, darling,” she says, just as she said so many times to Bastien when he was like this. Again, firmer, “ _No_ , darling,” and something in Sera must connect to the words, the authority in them, because though she gags and whimpers, she doesn’t bring it back up. She simply groans, swallows hard, and presses her face against Vivienne’s shoulder. Vivienne smiles, says, “Good, darling,” and rewards her by letting her see that she is pleased.

“Bitch,” Sera musters; her voice is thick, cheek flushed and warm against the curve of Vivienne’s neck. “Frigging…”

“Yes, yes.” She smiles again, a little softer, and waits for Sera to relax. Light circles, traced with her thumb against the whip-tight muscles in her back, fingertips drumming in rhythm against the curve of her ribcage. “Now then, where were we?”

And so it continues. Vivienne has no shortage of stories about Bastien, and as the time ebbs away they grow more and more scandalous. There is value beyond measure in these stories, the ones that make even little Sera gasp; these are the stories she has never shared before, the stories she could not afford to let out. There are those in Val Royeaux who would pay a high price for stories like these, and even whispering them in darkened corners would hurt both Bastien’s reputation and Vivienne’s own. She does not use the word ‘scandalous’ lightly; the word carries a great deal of weight in her circles, and if these tidbits were to get out it would ruin them both.

And yet, seeing the glow on Sera’s face, the way she gasps and giggles, the way she blurts out inappropriate comments, sounding almost like herself again in the moments she forgets where she is… seeing her come alive for the first time in days, Vivienne finds that she cannot help herself. Maker preserve her, she finds the little troublemaker almost _endearing_ like this.

It is more than that, though. It is a gift for Sera, yes, a reward of sorts for her sacrifice and a necessary distraction as she struggles to eat; that goes without saying. But it is not just Sera who takes comfort in this, and she is not the only one who glows and gasps and giggles. The gift is Vivienne’s as well, and it is a treasured one. There is not a soul in Skyhold who has thought to ask about Bastien, who has shown the least interest in the man who held her heart for so many years. Sympathies, yes, but it always ends there. No-one cares, not really, and certainly no-one is interested.

Sera is. Not simply polite, listening because she has no choice, but truly _interested_. She asks questions, listens raptly, eyes bright and alive. She is enthralled, truly and sincerely, enamoured by the locked-away pieces of Vivienne’s heart, the way she speaks and the stories she tells. Enamoured by Bastien, too, and that is more of a comfort than anything Vivienne could imagine. Far greater than a worthless wyvern’s heart, it is a gift indeed to find a shared soul, someone with whom she can celebrate Bastien’s life, and all the more so when she is not allowed to truly mourn his death.

“Who would’ve thunk it?” Sera says at one point; she’s a little flushed from laughing, or trying to laugh, and Vivienne is trying very hard to ignore the way the sound of it makes her want to laugh as well. “Guess even a bitch like you can bag herself a good one, huh?”

Vivienne does not respond. She simply shakes her head, and plucks another story from her endless stock.

The broth all but goes to waste. Sera refuses everything beyond the smallest mouthfuls, and even those are a struggle for them both. Vivienne’s arms grow weary from holding her, fingers stiff from circling her back, cupping her cheek, keeping her steady; Sera, for her part, looks exhausted and miserable, and the tiny part of Vivienne that almost allows itself to feel empathy wishes she could simply end this exercise now and be done with it. It is painful to see her in pain, more so still to be the one who causes it. Knowing that something is for the best does not always make it easier.

Still, it’s better than nothing, and if the skin-and-bones look of her is any measure to judge by the little she does manage is infinitely more than she’s gotten down in several days. Another two or three sessions like this, and perhaps she will start to recover some of her lost strength, perhaps even allow herself to realise that the symptoms are all in her mind. It worked with Bastien, and just as she was then, Vivienne finds that she is content here to take the small victories. There have been too few good moments in recent days, and it feels wonderful to cherish this one.

It is perhaps two hours later that she finally brings things to a close. In terms of the broth, the afternoon can hardly be described as a success, and yet still it feels like one. It feels like a recovery, not simply for Sera but for Vivienne herself as well. She feels almost like the woman she used to be, the starry-eyed young Circle mage who caught Bastien’s eye so long ago; she had all but forgotten what that woman was like, how it felt to be eager and excited, to smile and laugh and _feel_ without fear of repercussion. It is a wonderful thing to remember, to re-live, though of course she will never allow Sera to see her part in it.

“Well,” she says, and despite her best feint at indifference a hint of reluctance shimmers in her voice. “I’m afraid I really must be off, my dear. As you know, I have important things to do, and I can’t very well tarry here all day…”

It is a ruse, of course, a thinly-veiled excuse to cut the moment short before it reaches its breaking point, before either of them can take a step back and realise what they’re doing and who they’re doing it with. Sera understands this, of course — she is definitely not so stupid as others believe, as Vivienne herself believed not so long ago — but it is clear that she is upset by the idea of being alone. She is as conscious of her own reputation as Vivienne is of hers, but she is also an unapologetic coward, and Vivienne knows that solitude frightens her almost as much as demons and magic.

Still, for all that she can’t deny any of that, for all that she wouldn’t even if she could, Sera is not quite so weak that she will be seen begging her to stay. She would not beg anyone for anything, Vivienne knows, but herself least of all. Certainly, she will not admit to enjoying her company or acknowledging that it helped, no more than Vivienne will admit that the same is true for her. This afternoon has left her more at peace with Bastien’s death than she would have ever thought possible, and she can see that a couple of hours’ worth of laughter and weak broth have done wonders for Sera as well; this time spent in each other’s company has brought them both a little closer to recovery, though the world will crumble to dust before either of them admit to it.

“Right,” Sera mutters, admirable in her dedication to being petulant. “That whole _‘oh, you’re still alive, see you later’_ thing, yeah? Done your duty or whatever, and now it’s off back to Fancy-Pants land with all your…” She trails off, paling, and Vivienne steadies her again almost without thinking. “Ugh, whatever. Like I care what you do.”

The antagonism is not only expected, but also necessary for their mutual posturing, and so Vivienne returns it in kind. “By all means,” she says, “continue with this line of disrespect, my dear. But rest assured, if you do so, that when I return — and yes, I _will_ return, no matter your feelings on the matter — it will be with something far less palatable than broth.”

Sera almost smiles; not quite, but almost. “Not bloody possible, that. Got better meals out of rubbish bins.”

“And yet, despite your best efforts, you kept it down.” Vivienne does smile, if only because Sera cannot. “I’d consider it a victory, wouldn’t you?”

“If you say so.”

She blanches again, though, and swallows hard. It is as though the mere reminder of her condition is enough to turn her stomach, and Vivienne allows herself a moment to feel bad about that. She shakes her head, soothes the poor girl with a press of her palm against her back, fingers spread across the surface. A fleeting touch, nothing more, but it works well enough. Sera sits up, straightens her shoulders, and Vivienne nods her approval.

“Good,” she says again, like an echo. “Good, darling.”

“Easy for you to say.” Sera sighs, hugs herself, and when she looks up at Vivienne again she doesn’t even try to hide the gratitude shining like tears in her eyes. “Ugh. Who would’ve thought _you’d_ be the one to make it not so bad?” She shakes her head, like she can’t believe it. “Frigging weird, that.”

Vivienne thinks of Bastien. She thinks of his life, the memories she’s been forced to push down ever since his final breath, the moments and the laughter she has willed herself to suppress, to ignore, to drive away lest she remember what she has lost and make a scene in front of the wrong people. _Can’t have that, can we?_ She thinks of the past few days, alone and unthought-of, the half-hearted sympathies from barely-acquaintances who only want to say the right thing and care little for how she might feel.

She thinks of Sera, as well. She thinks of the way she glows and gasps and giggles, the way she doesn’t judge, not any more than Vivienne judges her fear of demons, her fear of magic, her fear of almost everything. It is freeing, she realises, to be here, neither judging nor judged, to share the things that others do not understand with the most unlikely of audiences.

She thinks of the two of them, of Sera and Bastien both. It is not simply that she spoke about him and Sera listened, it is that Sera allowed her to speak about him unfettered, to voice her feelings without censorship for the first time in her life. The moments she shares with Sera, the ones that would cause unimaginable damage in Val Royeaux… where others would see scandal and drama, Sera sees only joy, the same joy that Vivienne felt in his arms. She sees the parts of him that Vivienne loved best, the parts no-one else will ever know about, the parts that made him _human_ , and she sees the ways they came together, the way they meshed with the rest of him to shape the man that Vivienne loved.

She smiles to think of the way that Sera’s eyes light up, the way she laughs at some scandalous detail or another, the way she leans against her, cold sweat on warm skin, the way it does not feel strange to hold her, to spread her fingers across the plane of her back, to keep her steady, grounded and distracted as she tried to eat, to treat her the way she treated him on his worst days, to smile as she did on his best.

At last, she climbs to her feet. Sera sways a little when she lets her go, but Vivienne stays until she finds her balance. This time, she does not turn away immediately; instead, she stands there looking down at her and realising that for the first time since they met she’s not looking down _on_ her. She relishes the moment, even as she resents it, the way she softens, the way the corners of her eyes crinkle at the sight of her, smiling as Sera props herself up on her elbows, loving and hating the way it makes her feel lighter than she has in far too long.

 _Frigging weird_ , Sera said, and Vivienne allows herself to laugh. “I couldn’t agree more, my dear.”

*

It does not surprise her that Cole seeks her out.

It does surprise her, however, that he waits until later that day, that he allows her an hour or two of solitude before imposing his unwanted presence.

Perhaps it should not, though; the demon seems to sense everything, whether she wants him to or not, so perhaps he senses her need to process what she’s feeling. It is hardly subtle, at least not by her standards, and it does not take a demon to see the conflict in her, the guilt rising up once more, albeit in a somewhat different shape. It is strange to feel guilty about feeling better, to feel bad about feeling good, and yet she supposes that this shouldn’t surprise her either. It is odd, hard to accept the small comfort she found with Sera, hard to let go of bad habits, the parts of her that have been trained to think of moments like this as illicit and shameful. Bastien would certainly approve, she knows, but what of the Court?

 _I have spent too long away from Val Royeaux_ , she thinks, and tries to ignore the voice that adds, _or perhaps not long enough_.

When he finally comes to her, he doesn’t announce himself. She simply turns and finds him there, sitting on one of her chairs. He is smiling, which is unnerving enough in itself, but far more so is the way he seems to think he has the right to paw at her belongings. He is thumbing through one of her most precious books, a unique tome of alchemical formulae, as though it were one of Cassandra’s silly little romance novels, as though he has no idea what it is worth in both monetary and sentimental currency. He should know better, if he knows even a fraction as much as he claims to, and she finds herself incensed even before he says a word.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Without thinking, she snatches the book out of his grasp; it is entirely possible that the violence does more damage than his demon’s hands, but that is hardly the point. “Between you and Sera, is nothing safe in this fortress? You’re always taking things, touching things…”

“That’s what she says,” he says, almost to himself. “ _Creepy. Always touching things. Get out of my stuff, get out of my head, get out, get out, get out…_ ”

Vivienne almost finds herself smiling again, though she has no idea why. “Well,” she says, and the word helps to ground her, helps her to banish the smile in favour of a frown. “It would appear that our little fool is not so foolish after all. Valid points, all of them, and you would do well to heed them.”

“I do.” She loathes the way he bows his head, the way he covers his face so that she can’t read him; he may not need to see her face to read the thoughts within, but she is not so blessed, and it is frankly rude to set her at such a disadvantage. “Clutter, clatter, clanging, clamour. Chaos, conflagration. She likes it that way. Laughing, loud, luxuriant. The room sings when she’s in it, but it’s silent now.”

“She’ll be back there soon enough.” The words are out before she can even think to stop them, and she presses on with an urgency that feels uncomfortably like backtracking. “And when she does return, I strongly suggest that you leave her alone.” There is no ‘suggestion’ at all, of course, and he knows it perfectly well. “That poor girl has been through quite enough already, and I won’t have you storming in and upsetting her further.”

“I don’t storm.” His shoulders hunch, as though confused. “The coast does, though.”

She sighs. “Of course it does.” Regardless, that is not the issue at hand just now, and she will not be so easily distracted. “I mean it, demon. If I hear so much as a rumour of you bothering her, I will personally ensure that you are bound and banished.”

“Yes.” Twisted creature that he is, he sounds positively delighted by the idea. “Yes, you should do that. I won’t hurt, don’t want to hurt. You have to bind me if I do. You have to…”

“Don’t tempt me,” she says, cutting him off with the utmost seriousness. “Now, then. If it’s not too much to ask, to what do I owe the displeasure of your company?” Naturally, he stares at her like she’s speaking gibberish. She sighs, tries again. “I assume you didn’t come here solely to paw at my books?”

“No.”

She clenches her jaw until it aches. “Then by all means, do explain — in simple words, if you please, and ideally ones that make sense — what you want from me this time.”

He raises his head. He’s wearing a terrifying little smile, one that he no doubt thinks is endearing, and his eyes are bright as though with unshed tears; the sight reminds her quite pointedly that he is unnatural, that however human he might appear he is undeniably and unequivocally a demon.

“I don’t want anything,” he says. “You did. You wanted, wished, withered and waned. Wistful, wizened, woeful, you waited. _Someone will ask. Someone will care. He was important, respected, loved. No-one knew him like I did, and they’ll want to know. They’ll want to hear about him, of course they will. Of course they will_.” Vivienne opens her mouth to interrupt, but he shakes his head. “But they didn’t. You wanted their words, wanted to share yours. But they didn’t ask, so you couldn’t tell.”

Vivienne closes her eyes, loathes herself for letting him speak. “They are fools,” she snaps, because her voice must remain strong even if her will cannot. “Ignorant, and distracted by their petty bickering. The world has lost a great man and they don’t even care.”

“You care.” That eerie smile widens. “And so does she.”

“Yes.” It pains her to say it, to admit aloud that perhaps he was right after all, but the truth is inescapable, and Sera deserves more than to see it swept under the rug. “Yes, it appears she does.”

“She likes stories,” he says, as though in answer to a question she did not ask. “Sweet, simple, silly, but safe. Shelter, sanctuary, homes for the homeless, a place where bellies are full and clothes are dry. Winding words make warm worlds; they make her feel good on the bad days, light up the dark thoughts. Stories like she used to love, before the hearth turned to hate and hurt and _no no no, not there, not in there, get out get out get out of my head_.”

He breaks off, as though silenced by some invisible hand. Sera’s, from the sound of it, no doubt in a slap.

“You see?” Vivienne says. “This is what happens when you parade about inside people’s heads without a proper invitation.”

The demon, of course, ignores her, carrying on as though the interruption never happened at all. “She likes to listen,” he says, as though Vivienne did not know this already. “Likes to listen, loves to learn. She could learn to love you, if you like. You are a very good teacher.”

Vivienne tilts her head, accepts the compliment and discards the rest. “I have a great many talents, it is true.”

He frowns. “ _A lie,_ you think, lazy, laughing. _Ludicrous, of course_.” His smile flickers, then disappears entirely. “You think it’s untrue. Empty words to heal a hollow heart, falsehood to fill the faceless places. You think it’s a lie, but it’s not.”

Vivienne shakes her head, angry that he would presume to know such things. “You are a fool. And a demon, lest we forget.” Still, despite herself, she finds that his floundering offers more comfort than she cares to admit. “Regardless, your work here is done. I helped, as you told me to, and she helped as well, just as you said. Do you wish for a round of applause? A medal of honourable conduct?” 

“No.”

“Then what? All is well, or shall soon be. Sera will recover in time and with the proper care, and Bastien…” She trails off, because she doesn’t trust herself to wander this path without tears. “In any case, it is done. _Done_. What more could you possibly need from me?”

“I don’t need anything. But you do.” He shuffles his feet, perhaps sensing her annoyance. “You helped. Helped, healed, held her. You helped, and now she feels better. You helped, and now _you_ feel better. You helped, but you need to hear it.”

“What—”

“The words. You need to hear them. You’ve said them a thousand times, thrumming and throbbing, a hundred heartbeats pounding like pain, shimmering like shame, wending and winding like water, _like weakness, and I am not weak, I will never be weak_. You say the words, say them and feel them and live them, but you don’t wait for them, don’t expect them, don’t let yourself want them.” His lip trembles, a flicker of sorrow that almost touches her. “You don’t think you deserve to hear them. But that’s not true. You do deserve it. You need it.”

Vivienne takes a deep breath, gives in to the madness. Why not? It seems she cannot fight it, after all.

“Very well, then,” she sighs. “Pray tell, demon. What, precisely, do I need to hear?”

His eyes are bright, ethereal but somehow strangely human. For a moment or two, they look almost like Sera’s, a thousand emotions all come together in a single point, so expressive it almost hurts to look at them. It is frightening, yes, but not nearly so disturbing as she has come to expect from him, and this time the unease brings a different kind of feeling. A sense of peace, of love, of memory, and a vague whisper at the edge of her thoughts, Bastien’s voice telling her that perhaps compassion is not such a terrible thing after all.

“ _Thank you_ ,” he whispers.

She swallows her emotions. Straightens her spine, her shoulders, smooths her lips into a single line. Allows him to see the transformation, the moment a bereaved woman becomes something else, the moment Vivienne becomes Madame de Fer, the lady of iron, a force to be feared. He has not earned her feelings, but perhaps he has earned the right to see her put them away.

“You are quite welcome,” she says, high and haughty, as though addressing the Empress herself.

And in the most private corner of her mind, where only he can see, she lets herself add, _“Cole.”_

*


End file.
